BENGALURU: About 20 days after taking oath as Chief Minister, Basavaraj Bommai has finally got an official residence in Bengaluru. An official order issued by the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms states that the CM has been allotted No.1, Race View Cottage on Race Course Road.
However, it will take a while for Bommai to shift to his new residence as it is now occupied by Higher Education, IT/BT Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan. “Ashwath Narayan is asking for a bungalow on Crescent Road. Once he gets a suitable accommodation and shifts there, the Race View Cottage will be painted and the CM will move in,” sources told TNIE.
With this, Bommai will join the league of CMs who have opted to reside outside ‘Anugraha’ and ‘Cauvery’ — the official bungalows allotted to CMs in the past. In the last 25 years, most of the chief ministers — from H D Deve Gowda in 1994 to B S Yediyurappa till last month — opted for one of these two bungalows, constructed during the British rule. An exception was H D Kumaraswamy, who stayed at his private residence in JP Nagar as CM during the JDS-Congress coalition government in 2018. However, during his first stint as the CM in 2006-2007, Kumaraswamy made ‘Anugraha’ his official residence.
Sources in CMO said that most of the CMs preferred ‘Cauvery’ over ‘Anugraha’. The latter was considered by a few to be unlucky as there was a belief that the occupant will lose the CM’s chair.
At present, ‘Anugraha’ is occupied by Lokayukta Justice P Vishwanatha Shetty. Both ‘Cauvery’ and ‘Anugraha’ are next to ‘Krishna’, the CM’s home office, on Kumara Krupa Road. Also, the CM can access ‘Krishna’ from both ‘Cauvery’ and ‘Anugarha’ through a walkway without using the main road.
In Karnataka, there is no designated official bungalow for chief ministers.
Over the years, CMs have occupied bungalows of their choice. While former CM Ramakrishna Hegde stayed at his private residence ‘Krithika’ in Sadashivanagar, S Bangarappa and R Gundu Rao stayed in a bungalow on Kumara Krupa Road, which is now occupied by Opposition leader Siddaramaiah. Yediyurappa continues to reside in ‘Cauvery’. Bommai, after taking oath as CM, continued to work from his private residence in R T Nagar.
CMs and their homes
Anugraha
HD Deve Gowda, Veerappa Moily,
SM Krishna, Dharam Singh, DV Sadananda Gowda, HD Kumaraswamy (during his first stint as CM)
Cauvery
JH Patel, Jagadish Shettar, Siddaramaiah, BS Yediyurappa