Aam Adami Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha on Saturday lashed out at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said that the cancellation of his allotted bungalow is ‘arbitrary and unprecedented’. Issuing a note on Saturday, the AAP MP alleged that the cancellation was done at the “dictates of the BJP to further their political motives and vested interest”.
Chadha was allotted the Type VI bungalow on Pandara Road, New Delhi, in July 2022. He had later requested a Type VII bunglow, which was allotted to him in September that year.
In March 2023, the RS Secretariat had sent a notice to Chadha to vacate the bungalow. In its place, another bungalow of a relatively lower grade was to be allotted to him.
Chadha had moved the Delhi Patiala House Courts in April and succeeded in receiving an interim stay against the dispossession order.
On Friday, a Delhi court ordered that Chadha has no right to continue to occupy the government bungalow given to him after the allotment was cancelled. The court has lifted the interim stay granted to Chadha.
“Plaintiff cannot claim that he has an absolute right to continue to occupy the accommodation during his entire tenure as a Member of Rajya Sabha. The allotment of Government accommodation is only a privilege given to the plaintiff and he has no vested right to continue to occupy the same even after the cancellation of allotment,” the court said in its order.
Chadha said the cancellation of the allotment arbitrary and unprecedented, and alleged that it was done at the “dictates of the BJP” to further their political motives and vested interest. He also pointed that several other first-time MPs are living in such accommodations and said that he will be taking “appropriate legal action”.
“At the outset, it is clarified that the cancellation of my duly allotted official accommodation was arbitrary without any notice to me. It is unprecedented in more than 70 years of history of Rajya Sabha that a sitting Rajya Sabha member is sought to be removed from his duly allotted accommodation where he has been residing for a while and more than 4 years of his tenure as Rajya Sabha member are still remaining,” Chadha said.
Chadha added: “There are many irregularities in the said order and the subsequent steps were taken by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat in clear contravention of rules and regulations. The manner of the entire exercise leaves me with no option but to believe that these have been carried out at the dictates of BJP to further their political motives and vested interest in order to scuttle and stifle the political criticism raised by the vocal parliamentarians like me.”
He further said that the allotment of the said accommodation was done by the Chairman of Rajya Sabha himself after taking into consideration all the factors “peculiar” to him.
“The allotment of the said accommodation was done by Hon’ble Chairman of Rajya Sabha himself after taking into consideration all the factors peculiar to me. However cancelling of the accommodation subsequently without any cause or reason signals that the entire suo moto exercise was undertaken to wrongfully target and victimize me,” he said in the statement issued on Saturday.
“This along with my suspension as a Member of Parliament, which was initiated by the treasury benches, leaves no doubt that the BJP is leaving no stone unturned to target vocal Members of Parliament. This amounts to unwarranted interference in the due discharge of their functions as the Representatives of the House and hits a rock bottom of vendetta politics.”
