New DelhiAug 6, 2025 18:21 IST First published on: Aug 6, 2025 at 18:21 ISTShareDelhi Assembly Speaker Vijender Gupta Wednesday led a guided tour of the Assembly premises to dispel claims about the existence of an alleged phansi-ghar (execution room) in the building.He said no such space had ever existed in the Assembly and called for responsible and fact-based representations of heritage structures. “There is no history of any such space. There was never an execution room here,” Gupta added.AdvertisementThese rooms, he said, were in fact designed to deliver tiffin boxes to members and formed part of the original building plan.The question of whether two rooms in the Delhi Assembly building were a British-era phansi-ghar or a tiffin room was hotly debated in the House on the second day of the Monsoon Session on Tuesday.Citing a map from 2011 when the Assembly building was constructed, Gupta had said the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government under the then chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in 2022 falsely claimed that the premises had a “phansi-ghar” and then renovated it.AdvertisementFormer CM and AAP leader Atishi had hit back, saying the BJP government was avoiding core issues and wasting the taxpayers’ money by discussing such matters in the House.Going back in timeDuring the tour, Gupta highlighted the Assembly building’s historical importance, tracing its origins to the early 20th Century when Delhi was declared the new capital of British India.He said the structure was built in 1912 — following the announcement at the 1911 Coronation Durbar to shift the capital from Calcutta — and was originally meant to house the Imperial Legislative Council under the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909.Designed by British architect E Montague Thomas and constructed under the supervision of contractor Faqir Chand, the building was completed in just eight months. It later served as the Central Legislative Assembly after 1919.Original architectural drawings of the structure are still preserved in the National Archives of India, Gupta said.According to filmmaker and author Sohail Hashmi, “The Imperial Legislative Council used to meet here before the newly constructed Parliament House of India in New Delhi (Sansad Bhawan) was inaugurated on January 18, 1927.”He, too, dispelled the ‘phansi-ghar’ theory.“It is unlikely that the Legislative Council functioned as the judge and executioner and put people to death on a regular basis on its own premises.”“I would, therefore, think that the story of a phansi-ghar at the present day Delhi Assembly is nothing more than a little fanciful fable,” he added.War of words continuesMeanwhile, the phansi-ghar debate continued on Day 3, which saw Atishi and other AAP MLAs being marshalled out after a heated exchange between them and BJP members.Minister Kapil Mishra accused the previous AAP government of “tampering with history” by projecting a false narrative. “They spent crores turning a tiffin room into a fake execution site, insulting our martyrs and misleading people,” he said.AAP MLA Sanjeev Jha, however, defended the room’s historical significance, arguing that many such execution sites were never officially recorded.“Historians have differing views on such places. In the 1912 map of this building, that is the only double-storey structure consistent with a hanging chamber,” he said.Jha warned against “whitewashing British tyranny” in an attempt to target Kejriwal and urged that materials from the site be examined by the Archaeological Survey of India.Meanwhile, the Speaker said the matter would be discussed formally in the House, and that public comment before such discussion would not be appropriate. However, he expressed concern over the use of public funds in promoting a misleading narrative, calling it a disservice to both the institution and the city’s heritage.Gupta also emphasised the importance of historical accuracy and institutional responsibility in portraying heritage structures, especially those central to democratic functioning. “Only through truthful representation can future generations engage with our history meaningfully, free from distortion or myth,” he said.