Not just Balabrooie, not a single tree will be touched: CM Siddaramaiah

Bengaluru: It was a victory for citizens who protested the demolition of the 150-year-old Balabrooie Guest House, with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah vowing not to touch even a single tree around the area.

It seems that Mr Siddaramaiah had no choice but to buckle under public pressure and scrap any plans the government might have had to demolish Balabrooie. Conflicting media reports left citizens feeling rather bemused on the day of silent protest outside Balabrooie Guest House, perhaps diluting the turnout.

However, activists stood their ground, saying that the 100-year-old trees that flank the premises deserve as much protection as the structure itself.

"There was never any proposal to start with, it came from the media," Mr Siddaramaiah told Deccan Chronicle at his office on Sunday afternoon, in the presence of eminent personalities like artist S.G. Vasudev, theatre personality Shrinivasa Kappan, architect Naresh Narasimhan and BPAC CEO Revathy Ashok.

Mr Siddaramiah also said he would look into reviving the Heritage Regulation Law, a draft of which has been with the Town Planning Board of the Urban Development Department for some years now.  

"MLAs have been demanding a clubhouse for some years now, but demolishing Balabrooie was never an option," said the chief minister. "There have been demands to declare Balabrooie Guest House a heritage structure, but I have no idea about that. That depends on the Urban Development Department."

CM gave verbal consent: Speaker

It was Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa, who unwittingly gave the game away a couple of hours before the meeting with the chief minister. He revealed that the issue had been brought up during a lunch, with MLAs reminding the chief minister about their request for a clubhouse. "They asked if they could have Balabrooie and the CM said yes," he explained. "It was only verbal consent, however."

Though the Balabrooie Guest House controversy has now angered people from different walks of society, the demand to build a Legislators Club on the same premises has been there for nearly a decade. A forum of former legislators has been submitting memorandums in this regard whenever a new chief minister takes charge.

This exercise began when N. Dharam Singh took over as Chief Minister in 2004, and the current incumbent Siddarmaiah was then Deputy Chief Minister. Since then whoever occupied the post, the forum has been submitting memorandum seeking permission to build Legislators Club on the lines of Constitution Club in New Delhi, meant exclusively for MPs and former MPs.

The move gained traction after Jagadish Shettar became Chief Minister in 2013. He formed a committee, headed by the then deputy speaker N. Yogish Bhat, which recommended that the Guest House in its present form can be utilised to train newly-elected legislators by organising seminars and debates.

Mr Bhat said the committee had not recommended demolition of the present structure. It had felt that it would be appropriate to establish Karnataka Legislators Institute in place of Constitution Club, but the essence of Constitution Club could be retained in toto.

The committee had felt that the “Nomenclature of the club itself was controversial and it would be appropriate to be called Karnataka Legislators Institute,” he added.

He said the committee had also felt the present Guest House had more than enough facility to carry out the activities for  Legislators Club. “The main objective is to provide common meeting place and reading facilities to help newly-elected MPs to augment their knowledge on various administrative issues.

Though it has a recreation hall too, it is not meant to play cards, as assumed by many, whenever the word ‘club’ is used,” he quipped.

Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister T.B. Jaychandra asserted that the former legislators forum had been petitioning successive chief ministers to build such a club, but no Chief Minister, including Siddaramaiah, was willing to concede.

“The forum had also suggested that they should be given separate land to build such a club and even this demand had not been fulfilled by any chief minister. Constitutional Club proposal had remained only in paper and it has not even taken shape of proposal yet,” he claimed.