A house for Mr Kejriwal in Chandigarh's Sector 2 has a hoary past

The house at the heart of the recent face-off between the BJP and the ruling AAP government in Punjab, pejoratively called “Sheesh Mahal” by the BJP, is a sprawling bungalow in Sector 2, that over the decades has been inhabited by powerful people both from Punjab and Haryana.

It is a 16-kanal plot, about two acres – the kanal being a unit of land measurement introduced by the British Raj for land revenue purposes, and still widely used across North India. It certainly has a hoary past.

Number 50 is close to Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s residence, a mere stone’s throw away, close enough to the Sukhna Lake to take your morning walk. This is the house, which has been freshly painted for AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal, to stay during his visit(s) to Chandigarh.

But in otherwise sleepy Chandigarh, whose politically sharp and equally socially conscious citizenry grade your place in the world according to your address, the house that you live in is a powerful signifier of influence.

CM Mann has stated that this house is actually a “camp office-cum-guest house” in the Chief Minister’s ministerial pool, meaning, the CM is entitled to accommodate who the CM wants. Kejriwal, the CM has said, is his guest.

Clearly, there is something special about House No. 50. A string of influential people have been its residents over the past three decades.

After Parkash Singh Badal lost the election in 2002 to Capt Amarinder Singh-led Congress, he refused to vacate this house. But Badal never lived here, his staff did. But then Badal’s good friend, Om Prakash Chautala lost the Haryana elections in 2005 and needed a house to live in Chandigarh, so Badal offered him his allotted house.

What happened next is a classic tale of entitlement mixed up with both friendship and privilege – and no questions asked. Apparently, the then Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Hooda of the Congress, denied Chautala a piece of real estate this size because Chautala did not have the required number of MLAs to be designated the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Haryana Assembly – the LoP is entitled to a designated, sprawling bungalow.

Chautala had 9 MLAs and to become LoP you need 10. He was one MLA short. Anyway, Badal came to Chautala’s rescue and for the next five years, he lived in Sector 2.

Come 2009, his party performed better, so Chautala shifted to a house allotted to him in Sector 19.

But House No. 50’s reputation did not begin with Chautala borrowing it in 2005. Prior to this, it was the residence of Punjab Police’s top cop KPS Gill, to whom the badge of eliminating the worst terrorists in Punjab is often given. In fact, Gill’s predecessor, Julio Ribeiro, would often meet his officers who were posted in the field in the darkest days of terrorism in the 1980s, in this house. At that time it was designated the Gazetted Officers Mess. When Gill became top cop, he liked the house so much he converted it into his official residence.

Fast forward to 2009, when Chautala left House No. 50 for another residence, after which it returned to the Punjab CM’s house pool. The CM at the time was Badal and the house was allotted to his son-in-law, Adesh Partap Singh Kairon, who was not only the grandson of Punjab’s first Chief Minister Pratap Singh Kairon but an independently powerful minister in the Badal government.

When Badal lost power in 2017 and Capt Amarinder became CM again, the house was allotted to former Advocate General Atul Nanda. He was the one who had grown exotic plants in the sprawling lawns around the house. After Capt Amarinder resigned in 2021, the house was allotted to former deputy CM Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa.

In 2022, when AAP came to power in Punjab, House No. 50 was designated the CM’s “camp office-cum-guest house”. AAP Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha stayed here when he visited Chandigarh and it would buzz with activity.

With about 15 months remaining for elections in Punjab, Chandigarh’s most interesting piece of real estate is living up to its reputation of hoary influence again, with its newest “guest” being AAP’s powerful Convener Arvind Kejriwal.