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The Rediff Special/ M D Riti

A house for Mr Gowda

Check out the estate agents first.

Chances are you will find him, Hardanahalli Doddegowda Deve Gowda, president, Janata Dal Secular, with one of 'em. Negotiating, what else, the rental of a house in Bangalore -- heck, aren't the prices here a bit too steep?

The former prime minister is desperately looking for a house so that he and his lady can start living happily ever after in Bangalore, which he has now made his political base.

Big deal, you think. Is it all that difficult to find a house in Bangalore?

Well, not really. Bangalore is still to recover from the real estate crash that took place a couple of years ago, and houses are available quite easily if you have the money.

But Deve Gowda is still to find one.

Ever since he vacated Anugraha, the chief minister's official residence, six months ago, the former PM has been at the job hammer and tongs. He had occupied Anugraha in 1994, when he was the Karnataka chief minister. He bequeathed it grandly to his son H D Revanna, a junior minister, when he left for Delhi as prime minister. But with the fall of the Janata Dal Government, Deve Gowda, who had by then moved back into Anugraha with Revanna, became, well, house-less in Bangalore.

Here's the profile of Deve Gowda's ideal house: One, the rent shouldn't be over Rs 25,000 a month, which is (as this correspondent knows from personal experience) not a big sum in Bangalore. Two, it should satisfy all his vaastu requirements (which are quite a few). Three, it should be okayed by the Special Protection Group. And four, it should be centrally-located... you know, not too far away from the railway station, bus station etc.

Now let's take these requirements one by one. Why should a former prime minister need a cheap house? What of the rent allowance he is entitled to for life from the government?

The answer is that Deve Gowda still rents a house in Delhi, and his allowance is all spent on that. In other words, the Bangalore house will have to be paid from his own pocket.

"Unfortunately, he has lost too many times now, and is viewed by industrialists in Bangalore as a spent force," remarked a Dal office-bearer. "Otherwise, it would not have been too tough for him to have found an industrialist to sponsor him a house."

A Deve Gowda supporter responds indignantly: "What nonsense! He is too proud and honest a man to stoop to accepting such sops from the business community of Bangalore!"

Even with the not-large budget, it should not have been too hard to find a spacious, modern, four-bedroom, independent house in a fairly upper class locality. But despite seeing about 20 houses since January, he has not been able to settle on any.

His vaastu aspirations aren't all that big a stumbling block. For, landlords in Bangalore are now quite used to their tenants breaking and rebuilding parts of their houses to comply with their beliefs.

But Deve Gowda's third requirement does pose a big problem. Many houses that he liked were reportedly shot down by the SPG on security grounds. Right now, the ex-prime minister camps with his daughter Anasuya and her cardiologist husband Dr H S Manjunath at their house in Padmanabhanagar. He used to stay with Anasuya whenever he was out of power and had no official quarters. The SPG are quite unhappy with the situation as there is no space for more than one or two of their men to stay in that house overnight, which is absolutely against their rules.

Three of Deve Gowda's sons live in Bangalore. The first, H D Balakrishna, is a senior bureaucrat. The third, ex-MP H D Kumaraswamy, now stays in J P Nagar. The fourth is a medical specialist and also lives in town, as does Deve Gowda's other daughter. Only his second son Revanna stays in the family house in Holenarasipur, which rejected the Deve Gowda clan so strongly in the last election.

The fourth condition arises from Deve Gowda's realisation that he is not a big shot anymore and, as such, wouldn't be provided any special travelling privileges. Hence, his need for proximity to the railway and bus stations.

His localities of choice, so, are the upper middle class neighbourhoods of Sheshadripuram and Vasanthanagar, with the middle class localities of Rajajinagar and Basaveshwaranagar as backups.

Deve Gowda is willing to put up a lump sum of Rs 500,000 for the house. However, the citizenry of Bangalore have become quite wary of renting out to politicians, especially those who are not in government, as too many people have had bad experiences of very senior and 'respected' politicians refusing to move out.

Interestingly, the state government has not offered Deve Gowda a house, though the practice of providing former prime ministers or presidents accommodation does exist in Karnataka. Former president Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, for instance, was given a government bungalow in one of the prime locations of Bangalore when he announced his desire to retire to the city.

Deve Gowda is known to be a good personal friend of Chief Minister S M Krishna. Both men belong to the same Vokkaliga caste, and Krishna used to visit Deve Gowda regularly at his prime minister's residence in Delhi even though he belonged to a different political party.

Yet, there seems not a house on offer to poor, humble Deve Gowda.

The Rediff Specials

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