Indira Bhawan: The new Congress headquarters is under the shadow of BJP. Here’s how peppermint

Indira Bhawan: The Congress party on Wednesday, January 15, shifted its national headquarters from 24 Akbar Road in New Delhi to a new address – Indira Bhawan at 9A, Kotla Road.

The five-storey building – named after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi – was formally inaugurated by Congress parliamentary party chief Sonia Gandhi in the presence of party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and other leaders.

The Congress party has been working on the spacious 24, Akbar Road bungalow in the Lutyens Bungalow Zone (LBZ) of the national capital since 1978, when it used to be the official residence of then Andhra Pradesh Rajya Sabha MP Gaddam Venkataswamy. Associate of Indira Gandhi.

However, the new address of the Congress headquarters belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In 2005–06, the Supreme Court asked political parties to shift their registered offices out of LBZ. The central government has identified the stretch between ITO (Income Tax Office) crossing and Connaught Place – with Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Marg connecting the two sites – to allot land to political parties.

Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg

The foundation stone of the new building was laid by former Prime Minister late Manmohan Singh and then Congress President Sonia Gandhi in December 2009. But it took 15 years for the party to shift to the new building.

The BJP’s national headquarters on Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Marg is within walking distance of the Congress party’s new address. Ideally, the main entrance of the office should have been Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg. But the Congress party decided to name the main entrance of its new office after Jan Sangh (later BJP) ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay on Kotla Road instead of DDU Marg.

Political analyst and author Rashid Kidwai said, “Perhaps the Congress party did not want to be associated with the BJP’s idealist Deen Dayal Upadhyay.”

Upadhyay, a lifelong RSS pracharak, worked with Syama Prasad Mukherjee in the early years of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), which later became the BJP.

“Having an address with the name of a BJP ideologue is the last thing the Congress would want to do, especially when he had become a big face in the BJP’s post-Modi era,” says Kidwai, who wrote 24 Akbar Road. ”

Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg got its name during the Janata Party era of 1977–80. It was previously known as Rouse Avenue, after Alexander Macdonald Rouse (1878–1966), superintending engineer during the construction of the new capital. A street in the neighborhood is still called Rouse Avenue Road, after the Rouse Avenue courts.

Named after Firoz Shah Tughlaq

In 1967, Jan Sangh led by Vijay Kumar Malhotra won the Delhi civic elections. Upadhyay died in February 1968 and in 1970, the Delhi civic body renamed the road as Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg.

Kotla Road, where the new Congress office is located, is named after the iconic 14th century fort, Firoz Shah Kotla, which was built by Firoz Shah Tughlaq.

“Kotla is a neutral name, unless you want to associate Firoz Shah Tughlaq with it,” says Kidwai.

In 1978, when the party was out of power for the first time after independence, Indira Gandhi lost the Lok Sabha elections held after the Emergency. Two years after moving to 24, Akbar Road, Indira Gandhi and the Congress returned to power in 1980 with a thumping majority.

Will Congress write its destiny again with a new office in the new year? The next big electoral test for the party is the Delhi Assembly elections on February 5. The once powerful Congress party has failed to win a single seat in the last two assembly elections in the national capital.