With the electoral war over, the battle rages on for occupation of One, Anne Marg, the official residence of the Bihar Chief Minister and symbol of power for the past 15 years.
Reacting to the second notice served on December 13 by the building construction department to former Chief Minister
Rabri Devi to vacate the sprawling bungalow within a week, her husband and Rashtriya Janata Dal President Lalu Prasad accompanied by a battery of TV reporters visited the proposed residence '10 Circular Road', earlier occupied by his brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav.
After inspecting the building in which repair works were on, he said the house was not yet ready and there was no hope
of it getting completed in seven days.
Lalu told reporters on Friday he would move to the new bungalow, renamed by Sadhu Yadav as '10 Janpath' a la residence of Congress President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi, only after it was spruced up, implying that the Lalu family
was in no mood to comply with the seven-day eviction notice.
"Let the new government send its men to remove my belongings when the December 20 deadline ends. We will
cooperate with them," he said. But, the building construction department seems in no mood to extend the deadline.
"There is no proposal before me for extending the one-week deadline for vacating One Anne Marg", secretary of
the department A K Singh told PTI on Sunday.
"10 Circular Road bungalow is ready for moving in. Whatever more needs to be done can be done after the occupants
start living there," Singh added. Lalu had also protested the tone and tenor of the notice.
Alleging it was an act of "political vendetta" by the Nitish Kumar government, the RJD Chief had said "are these words you should use for a former CM who is also a lady? How can she vacate it when renovation of the alloted house is not
over?"
The December 13 notice was the second one sent to Rabri for vacating One Anne Marg. The first was issued barely hours after Nitish Kumar government was sworn in on November 24.
Though the erstwhile first couple of Bihar have said many times that they would not waste time in shifting to their new house after the renovation work was over, sources attributed their hesitation in moving out to two factors.
The first was inauspicious period of 'kharmas' that will end by mid-January. Another reason for buying time was to find suitable shelters for their hundreds of cows, buffaloes, horses, cats and goats.
RJD leaders have declared they will resist any bid by the new government to get the bungalow vacated by force.
Party national spokesman and a Lalu confidant Shivanand Tiwari has dared the state government to get the house
evicted. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, when asked at a recent press conference about his shifting to 1, Anne Marg said, "It is sad that people have to be asked to vacate their houses. In Delhi and other states leader vacate it themselves without any making any fuss."
