In the House, but MPs hunt for houses

Housing problems have hit first-time members of Parliament with bewildering immediacy, days after a brand new Lok Sabha was convened.

With most defeated MPs taking their time to shift out of their official accommodation, new MPs are searching for accommodation, not just for themselves but for their staff as well.

Most MPs have been put up in government hotels like Janpath and Ashok at a huge cost to the government (rooms at the Janpath Hotel, an India Tourism Development Corporation hotel, cost around Rs 2,500 a day) while some other have shifted to state bhavans.

"We have been told that it will take more than a month for official accommodation to be available to us," said Ravindra Naik, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) MP from Warangal. Naik along with Adilabad MP Madhusudan Reddy of his party is staying at the Janpath Hotel.

K Chandrasekhar Rao, TRS chief and Cabinet minister, had initially moved into the Hotel Ashok but missed Andhra food, which is why he shifted to the Andhra Pradesh Bhawan within three days.

Another MP from Andhra Pradesh, Madhu Yaskhi of the Congress found the Janpath Hotel too uncomfortable. "There were cats running around the second floor where I had my room," he said.

Yaskhi is in good company in the Hotel Ashok with fellow Andhraite and Samajwdi Party MP Jaya Prada also staying in the hotel.

Ministers from Bihar, Tasli-muddin and MAA Fatimi have decided to brave the rigours of Bihar Bhavan, while Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav has been playing host to his brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav at his official residence on the Tughlak Road.

According to these MPs, however, the problem is not finding accommodation for themselves, but for their staff and senior party leaders who have come to Delhi. TRS general secretary Prakash said he had been staying in the Janpath Hotel with party MPs by getting an extra bed put in the room.

Many Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) leaders have been freeloading on party president Ram Vilas Paswan. "There are several rooms not used by the family where we stay," said Joginder, a party worker.

Fights have already broken out between various MPs over official accommodation. In the eye of the storm is former minister I D Swami's Tughlak Road residence next to Laloo Yadav's. The house has been allotted to Chandrasekhar Rao, But Sadhu Yadav wants the house next to his brother in law's, citing security reasons "meri jaan ko khatra hai".

What he is entitled to is a flat in South Avenue or the Bishambar Das Marg.

The TRS will have none of it, of course. "Why can not Sadhu Yadav continue to stay with his brother-in-law and solve the problem," said a party leader. Its just been less than a week since the 14th Lok Sabha was convened and it is not the only House where trouble seems to be brewing.