DNA:Mayank Aggarwal:Sunday, January 22, 2012.
When it comes to official bungalows our MPs, the country’s lawmakers, are merrily breaking the law, and making unauthorised constructions while the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) is happy twiddling its fingers, waiting to take action only after the houses are “vacated.”
An RTI application filed by DNA with the CPWD reveals a list of at least 166 MPs, top political leaders and even official party headquarters willfully disobeying the law and creating unauthorised structures that will, in all likelihood, never see the official sledgehammer. Interestingly, some of the unauthorised structures date back to 1998. These unauthorised constructions include temporary and permanent rooms, extra office spaces, toilets and portable cabins.
But not just top political leaders, the list also details unauthorised construction in the national office of political parties such as the Indian National Congress at 24, Akbar Road, the BJP at 11, Ashoka Road, and the BSP at 14, GRG Road. Even the BJP’s Delhi unit and the Congress Seva Dal offices are all part of this illustrious list.
Top BJP leaders such as leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, and leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, as well as their colleagues M Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Gadkari, Ananth Kumar, Yashwant Sinha, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Balbir Punj, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, Shatrughan Sinha, SS Ahluwalia, Kirti Azad and Navjot Singh Sidhu are all “guilty” of defying the law and creating structures to accommodate their flunkies.
Not to be left behind are personalities from the ruling Congress with party president Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel’s name figuring on the list. Other party luminaries such as Satish Sharma, Raj Babbar, Rajiv Shukla, Naveen Jindal, Sanjay Nirupam, Ashok Tanwar and disgraced Pune MP Suresh Kalmadi add to the pack.
Besides these two parties, BSP chief Mayawati and its leaders Akhilesh Das and Vijay Bahadur Singh, Lok Janasakti Party’s chief Ram Vilas Paswan, RLD chief Ajit Singh, Samajwadi Party’s P Jayaprada and former SP leader Amar Singh, Shiromani Akali Dal’s Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Harsimrat Kaur Badal all built rooms or modified their bungalows without the mandatory clearance from the authorities.
In response to a specific query on the action taken, the CPWD seems to have developed cold feet. While Delhi’s normal citizens routinely witness civic bodies swinging the sledgehammer on any encroachment or unauthorised construction, the law seems to bend conveniently when it comes to the law-makers. The CPWD says that it will move into action only after the bungalows have been “vacated.”
With the Congress and BJP parties and others unlikely to “vacate” the bungalows, it looks like the MPs will continue to be beyond its jurisdiction for years, if not decades.
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