Dear Reader,The war of words between Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary and the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal over the vacating of 10 Circular Road, the residence of former Chief Minister Rabri Devi, immediately evoked memories of similar rows involving top politicians in the past.Power is transient, and politicians know it. Yet many grow attached to the privileges that come with office, especially those that remain visible long after authority has begun to fade. Government bungalows in prime locations, whether in Patna, Lucknow, or New Delhi, are not merely residences. They function as political nerve centres and markers of status. Losing such a space is a visible reminder of diminished authority. This helps explain why some politicians resist eviction: the bungalow becomes a metaphor for power itself.On May 29, Bihar’s Building Construction Department issued a 15-day ultimatum to Rabri Devi to vacate the bungalow, having already served at least two prior notices. Tejashwi Yadav, Rabri Devi’s son and a former Deputy Chief Minister, has another bungalow allotted to him. As Rabri Devi refused to vacate the bungalow she has occupied for more than two decades, the Chief Minister intensified his attack, saying this was not a monarchy in which the mother wants one house and the son another.Accusing the NDA government of pursuing a “vendetta”, Lalu Prasad’s daughter Rohini Acharya called the eviction order a “Tughlaqi farman” and dared the government to forcibly evict the occupant. Politics is all about perception, and Rohini knows the bad optics that a forcible eviction of a former woman Chief Minister could create for the NDA, which has heavily relied on women’s votes for its success in the State.But the Chief Minister on June 2 asserted that the house would “definitely be vacated” and that “no living soul can stop it”. He also sought to claim the moral high ground, noting that as Home Minister of Bihar he lived in just a 2,400 sq. ft house, and that after moving into the Chief Minister’s official residence he renamed it Lok Sevak Awas (residence of a public servant). The name echoes Lok Kalyan Marg in New Delhi, which until 2016 was known as Race Course Road and houses the Prime Minister’s residence.The dispute has also produced its own folklore. A news outlet reported that Rabri Devi’s resistance is linked to the reputation of the alternative house, 39 Hardinge Road. Located in a plush locality, it has a history of politicians from many parties who, after moving there, went into political oblivion. That may or may not be true, but what is indisputable is that Rabri Devi, who was Chief Minister from 1997 to 2005, has occupied the house since demitting office. It has served as the RJD’s de facto headquarters, although the party has a separate office, as well as a visible marker of its influence in Bihar.The political importance of the bungalow is not difficult to understand. I interviewed Lalu Prasad in the same house in the run-up to the 2015 Bihar Assembly election. He had lined up a large number of village pramukhs and mukhiyas supporting the RJD, and slammed the Delhi press wallahs, explaining why he remained unaffected by their judgments. He was playing to the gallery.Nor is Bihar unique. Across the country, government bungalows have repeatedly become the subject of political battles.The row over Ram Vilas Paswan’s residence at 12 Janpath in New Delhi is a case in point. In March 2022, when the bungalow was forcibly vacated, household belongings removed, and Paswan’s bust dumped outside, it sparked a major controversy. The bungalow was home to the Paswan family for more than three decades and doubled as party headquarters. Having visited it regularly while reporting, I remember the back of the house: small makeshift rooms where party supporters lived or which served as party offices.Paswan died in 2020, and his son Chirag Paswan, who calls himself Narendra Modi’s “Hanuman”, is already facing a setback after his uncle Pashupati Kumar Paras split the party. Chirag also drew the ire of Nitish Kumar after damaging the JD(U) in the 2020 Bihar Assembly election by fielding candidates against it. The eviction was a blow. Chirag said he felt “deeply saddened and humiliated” and pointed to visuals of his father’s photographs and the Ambedkar statues that lay on the street. Tejashwi Yadav, fishing in troubled waters, said the BJP had “set Hanuman’s bungalow on fire”.In June 2018, controversy erupted after former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav vacated his official bungalow at 4, Vikramaditya Marg in Lucknow, following a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the lifetime bungalow privileges of former Chief Ministers. Alleging that Yadav left the bungalow in a shambles, the Adityanath government made a media spectacle of it. That was the first time one heard the term “sheesh mahal” used for a Chief Minister’s bungalow, long before it resurfaced in Delhi’s politics targeting Arvind Kejriwal.The Adityanath government alleged that Akhilesh Yadav removed Turkish tiles and Italian marble when he vacated. The Public Works Department documented extensive damage to the property, including broken tiles, damaged fittings, and dismantled air-conditioning ducts. Yadav held a press conference with steel taps in his hand and said he would give them to the government if it could prove he had stolen them. A BJP spokesperson dragged Ram Manohar Lohia’s name into the dispute, saying had Lohia been alive, he would have been embarrassed by such “vulgar opulence”. A Samajwadi Party spokesperson responded by asking whether the government had recovered Akhilesh Yadav’s fingerprints to prove he removed the tiles.Akhilesh Yadav was not the only former Chief Minister affected by the Supreme Court’s May 2018 order. The government issued notices to Narayan Dutt Tiwari, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Kalyan Singh, Mayawati, Rajnath Singh, and Akhilesh Yadav.In 2025, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court directed the eviction of former Ministers and legislators illegally occupying government housing. The order followed a PIL alleging that 48 government bungalows continued to be occupied by former Ministers and legislators.Old-timers also recall how former Kerala Chief Minister K. Karunakaran had a swimming pool built in his official residence at government expense and later sought a heated swimming pool when he became a Union Minister in Delhi.Another recurring controversy has involved attempts to convert official residences into memorials. I covered the controversy surrounding the eviction of RLD chief Ajit Singh from his official residence at 12, Tughlaq Road in New Delhi after he lost his parliamentary seat in 2014. The former Union Minister refused to vacate, demanding that it be converted into a memorial to his late father, former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh. Hundreds of Jat leaders and RLD supporters from western Uttar Pradesh descended on Delhi, threatening to cut the city’s water and power supply. The Urban Development Ministry held firm, citing a Union Cabinet decision from 2000 and a 2013 Supreme Court ban on converting general-pool residential government properties into memorials for departed leaders.The bungalow was finally vacated, and Ajit Singh was fined more than Rs.5 lakh for unauthorised occupation lasting 118 days.Former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar also became embroiled in a dispute over 6, Krishna Menon Marg, which had been allotted to her when she became Union Minister for Social Justice in 2004. Before the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the UPA Cabinet leased the bungalow to the Babu Jagjivan Ram National Foundation for 25 years, allowing her family to retain control over access to the property.A similar controversy arose around the permission granted to Mayawati to combine three bungalows on Rakabganj Road into a single property for a trust. In late 2014, the Modi government reversed course, issuing a policy that barred the conversion of government bungalows in Delhi into private memorials.But rows over official bungalows never disappeared. Even last October, controversy erupted when the Directorate of Estates and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs evicted the Congress leader and former MP Udit Raj from a Pandara Park bungalow that stood in his wife Seema Raj’s name. While the administration argued that she was in unauthorised possession of the property, the Congress alleged that the eviction was politically motivated and rooted in caste bias because Udit Raj is a Dalit.So, the current standoff in Bihar is unlikely to be the last of its kind. As long as politicians are attached to their official bungalows, and their successors attached to their eviction, the controversies will rage.I wonder, is losing power easier than losing the bungalow that came with it?Until the next newsletter,Anand MishraPolitical Editor,FrontlineCONTRIBUTE YOUR COMMENTS