Flat out

For Mamata Banerjee’s first visit to Delhi after becoming West Bengal chief minister, state guest house Banga Bhawan was given a makeover. Even the furniture for the chief minister’s suite was changed. But Banerjee declined to stay there, heading to her Baba Kharak Singh Marg flat where she had been living ever since she became an MP in 1984. The Trinamool Congress supremo has never entered Banga Bhawan in her life as a mark of protest against Left Front rule in Bengal. Though she has routed the communists and her own government is in charge of the state guest house, Banerjee prefers to stay in what she considers her “lucky flat”.