Bungalow No 5, Sunehri Bagh Road: Lok Sabha House Committee offers Rahul Gandhi new residence

New Delhi: Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi is going to take up a Type-8 Bungalow, 5 Sunehri Lane, months after he had to vacate his Tughlak Lane accommodation ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Gandhi will have Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud as one of his neighbours.

Sources in the party said that Gandhi had agreed to take over the accommodation after two more houses that he had preferred were allotted to NDA leaders instead. The first house that Gandhi sought, 22 Akbar Road, now has as its occupant senior BJP leader Anurag Thakur. The other house, 7 Safdarjung Road, would need time for renovations, the government said, and it has eventually been allotted to union civil aviation minister Rammohan Naidu.

Gandhi, as the LoP in Lok Sabha, is entitled to a Type-8 Bungalow, among a host of other amenities at par with a Cabinet rank minister. After these two houses were unavailable, leaders from the Congress party were making a list of available Type 8 bungalows. A team from the party then found the Sunehri Lane bungalow suitable.

On Friday, Gandhi’s sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, visited the house which led to a buzz about Gandhi agreeing to the accommodation. Sources in the Congress said that he had agreed to do so.

Gandhi had to leave the 12 Tughlak Lane accommodation that he had occupied for two decades after he had briefly lost membership of the House in the 17th Lok Sabha due to his conviction in a defamation case. While the conviction was overturned and his membership restored, Gandhi did not move back to 10 Tughlak Lane; he was living with his mother Sonia Gandhi at her 10 Janpath residence.

There were speculations that Gandhi will move to a flat in Nizamuddin, and there was a buzz that it could be former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit’s house in the tony delhi locality. Yet, despite a move to this end, the shift did not materialise eventually.