Five years after Congress president Sonia Gandhi laid the foundation stone of the party’s new headquarters at Kotla Road, construction of the new building is yet to start.
The Congress president had laid the foundation stone on December 28, 2009 to commemorate 125 years of
the party’s formation. On December 28, the party is observed 130 years of the party formation, but the construction seems to be a distant dream due to the abysmal performance of the party in the recent elections in the country. Sources in the Congress however, tried to shift the blame on the BJP ruled civic bodies for not clearing the plan layout of the proposed building.
Congress plans to construct a six-storey office on the two-acre plot allotted to it on Kotla Road in Central Delhi. The building will have a
convention centre, underground parking, closed-circuit cameras and a media room. The Congress president’s office will occupy an entire floor.
There was a plan in the 1980s to use the building on Rajendra Prasad Road for the party’s central office but it was given to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation following
the assassination of the
former Prime Minister.
Shifting the Congress office from 24 Akbar Road comes in the wake of a Supreme Court directive that all political
parties have to move out of lutyens Delhi.
In March 2007, UPA-I had decided to allocate land on the basis of a party’s combined strength in the two Houses. Four acres were allotted to parties with more than 200 MPs, two acres to parties with 101-200 MPs, an acre to those with 51-100 MPs and half an acre to parties that are 26-50 MPs strong.
The Congress turned out be the biggest beneficiary of the policy and got four acres of land. The BJP and CPI(M) were given two acres and one acre respectively. The policy clearly mentioned that the
parties had to vacate Government bungalows they were occupying within two years of the allotment.
The plot allotted to Congress was on Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg but the Congress later felt that having its headquarters on the street named after the Jan Sangh ideologue would embarrass it. Hence, the party decided that the entrance of the party
headquarters will be located on the Kotla Road side.
The Congress, which got a plot on Kotla Road in New Delhi on July 2007, has not even started constructing its office there. The BJP, which got land on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, too has no immediate plans of setting up an office at the given address.
Before Independence in 1947, the Congress had its headquarters at Anand Bhawan, the Nehru family’s bungalow in Allahabad. It shifted to 7 Jantar Mantar Road in Delhi after 1947.
Following a split in the party in 1969, the party’s
central office changed several locations before moving to 5 Rajendra Prasad Road in 1971. It moved to its present location 24 Akbar Road in 1978.