The Modi Government has announced no more allocation of Government bungalow for setting up memorials. It has also amended rules for organising birth and death anniversaries of key political leaders.

“With regard to the allotment of bungalows for memorials and the management of samadhis of our departed national leaders, henceforth no bungalow shall be made available for memorial for any person,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said after the Cabinet meeting.

Implementation of first decision will stop repetition of incidences happened few days back involving protest for converting a ministerial bungalow situated in Central Delhi into memorial of former Prime Minister Charan Singh.

After the former PM died, the bungalow was allocated to Ajit Singh after he became Minister. But when he lost last election and asked to vacate, he demanded to convert this into memorial as his father spent good numbers of years. However, the Government rejected the demand and finally Singh had to vacate it.

There are many bungalows in Central Delhi, which is also referred as Lutyans Zone, have been converted into memorials. There is one for Lal Bahadur Shastri, another for Babu Jagjeevan Ram, One for Indira Gandhi and so on.

There are demands for many more. However, there is feeling in the Government that such a trend will reduce the number of bungalows to be allocated to Central Ministers, Judges, and Defence Forces’ Chiefs besides others.

Earlier this year, there was a controversy over conversion of the then Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar’s official residence into a memorial in the memory of her father and former Deputy Prime Minister Jagjivan Ram.

Just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the then Cabinet had decided to allow the memorial for 25 years. It went against the Cabinet decision of 2000 of the NDA government which said that no government bungalow will be allowed for conversion into memorials.

Prior to Meira Kumar’s case, BSP chief Mayawati had also got a bungalow in a prime locality here converted into a memorial in the memory of former party chief Kanshi Ram.

The Government has also decided that the Central Government will organise birth and death anniversaries of only Mahatma Gandhi.

For all other key departed political leaders these will be responsibility of independent trusts and private organisation.

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