Congress Has A New HQ. Why It Still Wants To Retain 24, Akbar Road Bungalow

The 24, Akbar Road office is a part of the Congress heritage, and the party will approach the courts to retain the bungalow, sources have told NDTV. The Directorate of Estates under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has asked the main opposition to vacate the bungalows at 24, Akbar Road, and 5, Raisina Road by Saturday. While the Akbar Road premises housed the Congress headquarters for 48 years, the Raisina Road bungalow is the office of the Indian Youth Congress.

This comes after the Congress inaugurated its new headquarters, Indira Bhavan, on Kotla Marg near ITO.

Sources in the Congress said they have been paying rent for the bungalows -- on market rates -- and had also tried to get them allotted in the names of two of their party MPs, but that did not happen. Party leaders accused the BJP-led government of resorting to vendetta politics and vowed to fight legally.

A leader questioned why the government is bent on vacating these two bungalows when many politicians, including the BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi and former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, continue to stay on in government bungalows.

"The BJP government is acting out of vendetta. The 24, Akbar Road, office is connected to Congress's history. So we won't vacate this bungalow, and we will fight a legal battle," senior party leader and Rajya Sabha Pramod Tiwari told NDTV.

Manan Kumar Mishra, Rajya Sabha MP from the BJP, said, "When the Congress has already built a new party headquarters, they should move there and vacate this bungalow."

Why Congress Wants To Retain 24, Akbar Road

Leaders of the Congress say the 24, Akbar Road, bungalow is not just an office for the party, but a part of its heritage. These premises, they say, have been witness to historic moments.

The bungalow once housed Sir Reginald Maxwell, a member of Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's Executive Council during the British Raj. In the early 1960s, the bungalow was the residence of Daw Khin Kyi, Myanmar's Ambassador to India. Daw Khin Kyi's daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, who would later win the Nobel Peace Prize, spent several years in that house.

But the most glorious chapter of the bungalow's history began in the late 1970s. Following the Congress's crushing defeat in the 1977 elections, the party split. Indira Gandhi led a breakaway faction, and the group needed a place to work. Rajya Sabha MP G Venkatswamy, an Indira Gandhi loyalist, offered his Akbar Road bungalow. This bungalow witnessed the Congress's thumping revival. It remained Congress's headquarters through the Prime Ministership of Rajiv Gandhi, PV Narasimha Rao, and then Dr Manmohan Singh. The bungalow also expanded in size to meet the demands of space, till the Congress found a new address.

A Reporter's Diary

It was this office where Indira Gandhi-led Congress celebrated its comeback in the 1980 Lok Sabha election, three years after the party was routed in the post-Emergency polls.

In the years that followed, Indira Gandhi was assassinated, and Rajiv Gandhi took over. After the 1989 election, the United Front government led by VP Singh came to power, ushering in the Coalition era in Indian politics.

During these years, this reporter was at Congress's 24, Akbar Road, headquarters to cover several key events. It was at this office where the then Congress chief Sitaram Kesri announced to the media the Congress's decision to withdraw support to the HD Deve Gowda government in 1997. The number of mediapersons that day was so large that they could not be accommodated in the media briefing room, and Kesri had to hold the press interaction on the lawn.

Less than a year later, the Akbar Road bungalow witnessed the events surrounding the unceremonious removal of Kesri as party chief through a Congress Working Committee resolution. Multiple reports have said Kesri was locked in a bathroom as the transition of power took place and Sonia Gandhi took charge.

This was also the office where Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma, and Tariq Anwar rebelled against Sonia Gandhi and brought her Italian roots. They were expelled, paving the way for the formation of NCP.

From this bungalow, the Congress led the UPA to victory in the 2004 and 2009 general elections, and then suffered defeat in the three polls that followed.