Indira Gandhi Bhavan to be Cong’s permanent address, opening today

The Congress will eventually make the newly built Indira Gandhi Bhavan on the Kotla Road its permanent home from Wednesday, although the party’s original plan was to house its headquarters at Jawahar Bhawan in the heart of the capital.

But that was not to be. Records reveal that then PM Rajiv Gandhi had inaugurated Jawahar Bhavan — opposite Central Secretariat Complex housing union ministries — as the Indian National Congress office on November 14, 1989.

After the inauguration, some frontal organisations of the party, including the Sewa Dal even shifted there. Then senior Congress leader and a long-time AICC general secretary (organisation) Janardan Dwivedi too is learnt to have worked out of Jawahar Bhawan for two years until Rajiv Gandhi’s untimely demise in 1991 entirely stalled the project of the AICC headquarters relocation here.

The turn of events led to the Congress going back to finding a new home while Jawahar Bhavan, after the change of government at the Centre in 1991, was handed over to the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation which continues to operate from here.

The Congress’ hunt for a permanent home will eventually end on Wednesday when Sonia Gandhi inaugurates the new party office. The current AICC headquarters, 24 Akbar Road, a government allotment, remains a temporary home for the party which has shifted many houses in the capital.

The party history reveals that the AICC headquarters first came to Delhi in 1946, when JB Kripalani was the party president at the time of transfer of power from Britain to India.

Till then, Allahabad’s Anand Bhavan, the family home of Nehrus, served as the local Congress headquarters. Once the AICC office came to Delhi, it made Kripalani’s 6 Jantar Mantar Road residence its home. After the Partition, the Congress bought 7, Jantar Mantar Road, an evacuee property and moved in there. This house was purchased for Rs 7 lakh, an old-timer recalls.

When the Congress split for the first time in 1969, then party chief S Nijalingappa got the Jantar Mantar property while Indira Gandhi’s faction had to relocate to 5, Rajendra Prasad Road. When the Emergency was imposed in 1975, the Congress was housed in the RP Road office before it shifted to its current address, 24 Akbar Road in 1978 after the second split.