Months on, Rahul Gandhi yet to return to house he left after disqualification

New Delhi More than two months after his old bungalow at 12 Tughlaq Lane was returned to him, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has not gone back to his old address, people aware of the matter said on Monday.

Gandhi, his close associates said, continues to live at 10 Janpath and it’s unclear when he will go back to 12, Tughlaq Lane, which was one of the key addresses for the party’s planning and strategy-making.

Gandhi had handed over the keys of the bungalow, where he spent 19 years, to officials on April 23 this year. By that time, he had shifted his office and a few items from his residence to 10 Janpath, where his mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi lives.

Two Lok Sabha officials said that they have no official information that Gandhi has shifted to his original address. A senior Congress leader considered close to Gandhi added, “He continues to operate from 10 Janpath. He has not returned to his official bungalow and no one knows when he would do so.”

A day after Gandhi was convicted in a criminal defamation case and handed out the maximum punishment of two years’ imprisonment, the Lok Sabha secretariat disqualified him as per the Representation of People’s Act on March 24.

Then, 137 days after he was disqualified, his membership was restored on August 7 following the Supreme Court’s stay on the trial court order which was upheld by the Gujarat high court. The Lok Sabha secretariat issued a notification on August 8 to re-allot his old government bungalow.

Gandhi’s residence, besides having his office, became the all-important venue for crucial strategy meetings and often warring factions would come and meet Gandhi to hammer out a solution. Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot held a meeting with Gandhi at Tughlaq Lane, Siddaramaiah (now Karnataka CM) and PCC chief DK Shivakumar met Gandhi before the state polls just as many state unit leaders have held crucial meetings with Gandhi at that bungalow.

The MP from Kerala’s Wayanad was allotted the government bungalow at 12, Tughlaq Lane after he won from Amethi in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

“The people of Hindustan gave me this house for 19 years. I want to thank them. There is a price for speaking the truth these days. Whatever the cost, I will pay it,” Gandhi said after vacating the bungalow in April.

In Raipur, weeks before he was disqualified, Gandhi spoke about his unusual relationship with houses.

“I am 52 now and still I don’t have a house. The family house we have in Allahabad is not ours. I stay at 12, Tughlaq Lane. But that is not home to me,” Gandhi said.

When Gandhi left his bungalow, a large number of Congress leaders offered him their places to stay but he chose to live with Sonia at 10 Janpath, the bungalow adjacent to the Congress headquarters at 24, Akbar Road.