Mayawati’s Dalit parks may have caught the public attention, but the four-time chief minister’s (CM) wasteful expenditures began from home, it now appears. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader spent no less than `40 crore of public money on the upgradation and renovation of her palatial bungalow at 13-A Mall Avenue in Lucknow in her last term between 2007 and 2012.
This was no flash in the pan, however. No CM has spent more on the upgradation, renovation and beautification of their allotted bungalows. In the process of expanding her bungalow, Mayawati encroached on adjoining buildings, including government offices and private bungalows. The road was off limits to the general public. For five years, access to the road was given only to those who were to visit Mayawati’s fortress-like residence, covering a lakh square feet and surrounded by 18-foot sandstone walls.
Estate Department officials told The Sunday Standard that in the last five years, the department has spent more than `80 crore in the upgradation and renovation of Mayawati’s bungalow and a guest house, named after her mentor and BSP founder Kanshi Ram, built in the same block. Kanshi Ram stayed at the 13 Mall Avenue bungalow which has now been converted into guest house.
Sources say, as CM in 2007, Mayawati first got the office of the commissioner of the state sugarcane department—adjoining her house—vacated and demolished. Then the premise was compounded with her residence to increase the total area. This was followed by a fresh construction work that started with an amount of `10.31 crore in September 2007. This allocation, however, fell grossly short for Mayawati’s dream home; so by 2009, it was raised three times to `31.90 crore. But the expenditure didn’t stop at that; it slowly kept on rising.
It is not only that Mayawati’s bungalow occupied the adjoining buildings; she adopted the same tactics for her various dream projects. In 2007 when she desired expansion of the Ambedkar Park in Lucknow’s Gomati Nagar, dozens of JCB machines surrounded the stadium there and decimated it. Similarly for the expansion of a park named after Kanshi Ram, Mayawati government demolished a 300-year-old jail in Lucknow. This jail had once housed freedom fighters like Jawaharlal Nehru. Similarly, she had demolished a residential colony of government officers in the capital for her another dream project, Buddh Vihar. None could stop her demolition drives, however.
Interiors of Mayawati’s palatial bungalow are simply stunning. It is the Italian marble which covers most of the floors of the house besides the curtains, upholsteries and furniture that are precious. The five-star guest house in the campus has 18-foot high bronze statues of the BSP founder and Mayawati herself which cost the exchequer `8.09 crore. A good sum has also been spent on landscaping and sprucing up the lawns where Mayawati takes her morning stroll.
A lifelong entitlement to a government bungalow in the heart of Lucknow is one of the perks that a former CM of Uttar Pradesh enjoys. Even Narain Dutt Tiwari, a former CM of the state who has now shifted to Dehradun after he became CM of Uttarakhand, has a bungalow in the Mall Avenue area of the state capital. The house remains deserted but cannot be allotted to anyone else. Kalyan Singh also has a bungalow in the same area where his private personnel also live.
Former CM Bir Bahadur Singh was also an occupant of a house in the Mall Avenue area. After he passed away about two decades back, the bungalow went to his son Fateh Bahadur Singh, who got it allotted in the name of an NGO that he formed to keep the house in his possession. Another former CM and BJP leader Rajnath Singh lives in a bungalow on the famous Kalidas Marg where the incumbent CM, Akhilesh Yadav, has his official residence. Another former CM and ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo, Mulayam Singh Yadav has a huge bungalow on Vikramaditya Road, where he, along with his family including son Akhilesh, is staying at present. Akhilesh, however, has yet not shifted to his official residence on Kalidas Road.
Ironically, the state government spends a huge amount on maintaining these houses, besides offices of political parties. The SP has got four huge bungalows allotted to the party and its frontal organisations, while the BSP has acquired about half a dozen huge buildings in the name of the party and its frontal organisations.
A senior Estate Department official told this paper that there is no ceiling on the maintenance expenditure of the bungalows of the former CMs. For instance, Mayawati got a huge amount sanctioned for her bungalow from the state Assembly this year. According to sources, approximately `15 crore has been spent on the BSP offices in Lucknow in the fresh construction and renovation work in the last three years.
They said that Mayawati is very choosy about the quality of the construction works. “Whether it was her dream projects in Lucknow and Noida or her bungalows, Mayawati would often personally inspect the construction work and reject anything which she did not like and would ask for fresh construction.” This is why the cost of the construction works in her bungalows and park projects escalated many times. Mayawati, who lost power in the recent Assembly elections, drew much criticism for “wasteful expenditures” on building grand parks, monuments dotted with the statues that included hers too.
The present Public Works Department Minister, Shivpal Yadav, has swung into action, seeking details of government funds showered on the construction of memorials by the former BSP government. Claiming that more than `45,000 crore has been “scandalously” spent on the statues and memorials, Mulayam Singh Yadav has sought details of the expenditures incurred on these projects.
In the same spirit, Mayawati was on a spending spree to beautify her government-allotted residence and party offices which came to a halt after the new government took over. The former CM, who is known for her lavish way of living, in her recently-filed affidavit for election to the Rajya Sabha, showed property worth over `111 crore, almost more than double the amount she had declared during 2007 Assembly elections (`52 crore).
But controversies have never deterred the Dalit leader who lives her life king size, never mistake it as ‘queen size’.