Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar (File photo)
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar's office has sharply rebutted reports that she has access to more than one sprawling government bungalow in the heart of Delhi.
It has termed as "factually incorrect, highly mischievous and defamatory" a newspaper report that she will have access to a bungalow that has been given on a 25-year lease to a foundation in her father, Babu Jagjivan Ram's name.
The statement alleged that it was an attempt at "maligning the reputation of the Speaker." The allotment of the bungalow, it said, had nothing to do with Ms Kumar.
The bungalow at Krishna Menon Marg in central Delhi has been allotted to the Babu Jagjivan Ram National Foundation for a monthly rent of 79,565 rupees. The foundation is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment.
Babu Jagjivan Ram was a member of the first post-Independence government headed by Jawaharlal Nehru. He had lived in the bungalow till his death in 1986.
The Speaker's office has in its statement said the Congress leader's family had vacated the bungalow by 2002 and that Ms Kumar had lived in private accommodation from 2002 to 2009, when she became a Speaker. She now lives at 20, Akbar Road.
Ms Kumar was a minister in the first UPA government of 2004.
The government had, in 2000, decided not to allow for any bungalows to be turned into memorials in the New Delhi zone.