Bengaluru: Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has decided to vacate the official residence ‘Cauvery’, which he occupied during his tenure as the Chief Minister. However, he has now said that he should be given a residence of his choice!
The former CM has reportedly written a letter to Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa in this regard. There is no fixed bungalow earmarked for the Chief Minister of the state in Bengaluru. Each CM had in the past chosen residences of their choice and now BSY has decided to live in Cauvery.
BSY had recently said that it is better if the residence of the CM is close to the CM’s office and hence staying in Cauvery makes more sense to him as Cauvery, the one-acre premises in the plush Kumarakrupa locality is close to Krishna, the official home office of the CM of Karnataka.
“I am not asking Siddaramaiah to vacate Kaveri. I am ready to vacate the Race View Cottage for him. I will move into Cauvery when he vacates it,” BSY said.
However, as per sources, Siddaramaiah, who has agreed to vacate Cauvery has kept forth a condition that he should be allotted House No-1, located behind Gandhi Bhavan, to the East of Kumara Kripa locality. He has refused to accept Race View Cottage, which has been offered by BSY.
What needs to be noted is that this house was allotted for Assembly Speaker Vishveshwara Hegade Kageri, but to date former minister HD Revanna is still occupying the same house.
It may be recalled that ‘Cauvery’ has been considered as a jinxed bungalow by many due to the faulty Vastu. However, the myth busted after BJP leader Jagadish Shettar occupied the house when he was first made speaker in the BJP government.
He continued to stay there even after he was made a minister and after his elevation as CM later. The house was occupied by Siddaramaiah once he became the chief minister, but reportedly with a lot of contemplations.
Cauvery has a history of being blamed for the political setbacks of earlier occupants — Veerendra Patil, R Gundu Rao, JH Patel, and even Siddaramaiah, who lost power after he had a tiff with JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda when he was deputy CM in the Congress-JD(S) government in 2005. Recently, even Kumaraswamy refused to move into Cauvery as he considered it unlucky owing to the episode of 1990 involving the then CM Veerendra Patil, whose health deteriorated in the very same house and he lost the position of the state’s CM.
