WEB DESK / NEW DELHI
Senior Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav has reportedly met UP CM Yogi on Wednesday over the recent order of the Supreme Court asking former CMs to vacate their official residences.
According to sources, Yadav suggested to the CM that his and his son Akhilesh’s house should be allotted in the name of leaders of opposition in Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council, Ram Govind Chaudhary and Ahmad Hasan respectively.
Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati are among the six former CMs who will have to vacate their sprawling bungalows after the SC on Monday quashed a 2016 amendment passed by the Samajwadi Party government allowing them to retain government accommodation for life. BJP’s Rajnath Singh and Kalyan Singh and Narayan Dutt Tiwari of the Congress will also have to move out of their government bungalows.
The SC in its recent order had said that “once a Chief Minister demits office, he is also a common citizen” and quashed the law to entitle former CMs to retain bungalows during their lifetime. A bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi ruled that there cannot be any distinction between a common man and a former CM and thus, granting such privilege violated equality under Article 14.