Mayawati burns Rs 86-cr hole in India’s pocket

Saba Ashraf, Arundhati Konar, YourMoneySite.

In India, the news about politicians spending crores of public money on their own pleasures, has become routine. Only the names and amounts change every time. However, one lady who has been in news for splurging public money is Mayawati – Bahujan Samaj Party chief and ex-Uttar Pradesh chief minister.

This time, the ‘statue lady’ is in news for spending a whopping Rs 86 crore of government fund to refurbish her 13 Mall Avenue bungalow in Lucknow, during her term as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.

The renovation work at the BSP chief’s sprawling Mall Avenue bungalow started soon after Mayawati became chief minister for the fourth time in 2007 and completed towards the end of her tenure, early this year. It must be some renovation then!

The particulars related to the money spent on the renovation work were brought to light in an RTI reply by the Estate Department. The application for the same was filed by of PWD minister and Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Singh Yadav.

Yadav, who was the leader of opposition during Maya's tenure, had filed an RTI application a year back, to which the Estate Department replied in detail recently. And if reports are to be believed, the money spent in the renovation is assumed to cross Rs 100 crore!

And it is well known it was not only the bungalow that the Dalit leader has splurged on. During her tenure as the chief minister of the state, she also erected innumerable statues of herself and a few other Dalit leaders.

Mayawati’s bungalow is spread across 5 acres of prime land in Lucknow's 13 Mall Avenue. Now it is interesting to note, that originally, the bungalow was on 2.5 acre of land, which obviously was not enough for the then ‘queen of UP’. Therefore, Mayawati had the cane commissioner’s office building next to the bungalow, demolished! The bungalow is covered by 20-feet-tall walls made of sandstone from Rajasthan.

In a brief tour of Mayawati’s bungalow, the main building, which is single-storeyed, comprises of six inter-connected rooms. These rooms open to a sprawling corridor, which has a large frame on its wall, that of Mayawati’s oath-taking ceremony as the UP chief minister for the first time in 1995. The renovation job was assigned to the Nirman Nigam, which gave top priority to the chief minister’s house.

The verandah, outside the corridor, has two windows with bullet-proof glasses and reports suggest that each window is worth Rs 15 lakh!

According to reported news, many parts in the Lucknow’s 13 Mall Avenue underwent renovations, not once, but a number of times. From statues, to floorings, to bathroom - it seems, the workers found it difficult to match the taste of 'the statue lady of India- Mayawati.

Obviously, the leader of the backward classes believed in splurging public money for her own changing choices, rather than on the changes in the lives of people she stood for!

Here’s a glance at the amenities that Mayawati’s bunglow boasts of:

- Well-furnished two-storeyed guesthouse with 14 bedrooms on the same campus

- All rooms have pink Italian marble flooring in keeping with Maya's fondness for pink stone

- This building also has a meeting hall, a security room, garages and drivers' rooms

- Two 20-feet statues, of Mayawati and her mentor late Kanshiram, in the premises

- Five marble statues of elephants

- A barbed fencing round the boundary walls for security of the house

- A close-circuit TV network kept close watch on visitors

Source: http://www.yourmoneysite.com/news/2012/may/mayawati-burns-rs-86-cr-hole-in-indias-pocket.html