The Type VIII bungalow in Civil Lines area of North Delhi may have hosted Kejriwal during his tenure as CM for nine years, but now the Delhi government has mooted a proposal to turn the bungalow into a state guest house, they said.
Delhi does not have a state guest house at present. Earlier, 33 Shamnath Marg was turned into a state guest house for a few months after Madan Lal Khurana demitted the chief minister’s office in 1996. Since then, Delhi has not had such a facility.
The Delhi government has proposed that the property be made open to DANICS (Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar, Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli (civil) Services) officers travelling to the capital for work or to host government functions such as signing of memorandum of understanding.
“There is no question of stripping the opulent bungalow to its original form. Public exchequer’s money has been spent on it,” a senior official told ET on condition of anonymity.
A final call will be taken by the new cabinet.BJP state president Virendra Sachdeva had written to Delhi lieutenant governor V K Saxena earlier this week to separate the bungalows that had been amalgamated with 6, Flag Staff Road bungalow to turn it into a sprawling property across more than 20,000 square metres. He had clarified that the new chief minister would not reside in this bungalow.According to government records, eight Type-V flats at 45 and 47 Rajpur Road, along with two government bungalows (8-A and 8-B Flag Staff Road), were amalgamated with the 6, Flagstaff Road bungalow. The cabinet will also take a call on whether these bungalows would be demerged from 6 Flag Staff Road.
The bungalow was home to Kejriwal from 2015 till October 2024, when he resigned as chief minister and vacated it. It had come under public scrutiny when a leaked Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report of 2022 revealed that the Kejriwal administration ran up a bill of Rs 33.66 crore – about 245% escalation from the initial estimate of Rs 7.91 crore – over renovation of the bungalow. The BJP used this to portray Kejriwal as a leader who had forsaken his grassroots origins for extravagance. The report also underscored a lack of transparency in awarding consultancy contracts and selecting contractors. It showed that Rs 96 lakh was spent on main and sheer curtains, Rs 20.34 lakh on TV console and Rs 16.27 lakh on silk carpets.
