New Delhi, Jan. 15: What disqualification as MP following a criminal conviction had failed to achieve, the NDA government has pulled off in eight months.
Lalu Prasad has finally vacated the ministerial bungalow he had been occupying for 13 years, eight of them as a non-minister and the last 15 months as a non-MP.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief had been allotted 25 Tughlaq Road, a Type VIII bungalow in Lutyens' Delhi usually reserved for ministers, when he was a Rajya Sabha member in 2002. The allotment was regularised in 2004 after the UPA government took over and appointed him railway minister.
He continued to occupy the house after losing his cabinet berth during the UPA's second term. The bungalow, which sprawls an area of nearly 7,000sqm, played host to several news conferences and political meetings.
Lalu Prasad was convicted in the fodder scam in September 2013 and automatically lost his Parliament seat. In November that year, the house allocation was cancelled. But the outgoing Congress-led government did him a favour before demitting office.
At its last meeting in February last year, the cabinet committee on accommodation allowed Lalu Prasad to retain the bungalow for a year from the date of cancellation. As soon as that period expired, the new BJP-led government served him with an eviction notice.
'Since he did not vacate the bungalow, the matter was referred to the litigation department. An eviction order was passed in November 2014,' a senior urban development ministry official said.
Lalu sought an extension, citing health reasons such as the six-hour cardiac surgery he had undergone in August.
At a meeting of the cabinet committee on accommodation in November, the government granted an extension to Congress leader Harish Rawat, who has moved to Uttarakhand as chief minister, but rejected Lalu Prasad's plea.
The RJD leader vacated the house on Tuesday.
Last summer, former comptroller and auditor general Vinod Rai had written to the Chief Justice of India citing how at least 22 former Union ministers and retired bureaucrats were being allowed to overstay in government bungalows. Among them was Lalu Prasad who, Rai claimed, had been granted an extension on the ground that his grandchildren's school was close to the bungalow.
Indeed, Lalu Prasad's eldest daughter stayed with him at the Tughlaq Road bungalow and her children went to the nearby Sanskriti School.
'He is more worried about them than himself,' said a Rashtriya Janata Dal senior.
The last major eviction was that of former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar's son Neeraj Shekhar, from 3 South Avenue Lane, which had been allotted to his father and later to him.
It was a Lok Sabha member's bungalow, and Neeraj had to leave because he had lost his lower House seat and subsequently become a Rajya Sabha member.
Question Hour was disrupted on December 1 in the Rajya Sabha as several Opposition parties criticised the eviction notice.
Sources in the central public works department, which maintains these bungalows, said that never before had a new government evicted unauthorised occupants of government bungalows so promptly. 'Within six months of the new government taking over, most of the previous occupants have given up their bungalows. The entire transition has been very smooth,' a senior official said. 'Just a handful are still continuing to stay illegally.'