New Delhi: A former Indian minister has threatened to cut off water supply to the national capital in retaliation after authorities disconnected water and power supply to the government bungalow he is occupying illegally.
Ajit Singh, who was the minister for civil aviation in the previous Manmohan Singh government, yesterday issued the threat while leading a violent demonstration against the eviction order.
Delhi gets nearly a fourth of its water supply from Singh’s home state Uttar Pradesh.
The Singh-led protest turned violent at Ganga Nahar near Ghaziabad district of Uttar Pradesh as his supporters pelted stones at the police, who used batons to control the unruly mob.
The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) had on Saturday disconnected water and power supply to Singh’s 12 Tughlaq Road bungalow as the former minister refused to vacate it.
Singh was issued several notices to vacate the bungalow, originally allotted to his father and former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh in 1978, after the younger Singh’s defeat in the recent parliamentary polls.
The bungalow in question has been allotted to the incumbent sports minister Sarbananda Sonowal who has been forced to live in a guesthouse.
Interestingly while Ajit Singh may not have managed to retain his Baghpat seat of western Uttar Pradesh, he may play a role in next month’s assembly polls in neighbouring Haryana, with Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda deciding to bat for him with an eye on the Jat voters.
Locked in a tough election to form the government for the third consecutive term, Hooda lapped up the NDMC action to get into the good books of Jats.
The Jats of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan considered Chaudhary Charan Singh their supreme leader until he died in 1987.
Hooda therefore feels the eviction of the great Jat leader’s son from the government bungalow can be exploited for electoral gains.
In a letter addressed to the urban development minister M. Venkaiah Naidu, Hooda termed the disconnection of water and power supply as a “discourteous act”.
“I feel this is an unceremonious and discourteous act, more so because the sacred memories of Chaudhary Charan Singh, the former Prime Minister are associated with this house in which he moved in 1978,” Hooda said in his letter, suggesting 12 Tughlaq Road bungalow should be converted into a memorial of the fifth Indian prime minister.
“The eviction order has served the sentimental chord connecting Charan Singh memories and the peasants or workers of India … It has hurt the feelings of millions of farmers of India who consider Charan Singh as their [saviour],” Hooda wrote.
While several government bungalows occupied by famous personalities serve as memorials, the respective governments in the past decided that no more memorials would be allowed in government bungalows.
The last bungalow allotted as memorial was by the previous Manmohan Singh government to former deputy prime minister Babu Jagjiwan Ram whose daughter Meira Kumar served as the speaker of the Lok Sabha.
The bungalows of the first three prime ministers — Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi — serve as memorials along with several others.
Hooda himself is a Jat and is facing stiff challenge from the party of another iconic Jat leader and former deputy prime minister Chaudhary Devi Lal’s son Om Prakash Chautala in Haryana elections scheduled for October 15.
