Damages at Akhilesh Yadav’s bungalow serious matter, punish those guilty: UP Governor Ram Naik to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath

Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik has written a letter to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over the issue of damage found at the government bungalow recently vacated by former CM and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav. Terming the issue as a “serious matter”, the Governor has asked the BJP government to take action against the culprits.

The Governor has pointed that the maintenance of official bungalows is done using taxpayers’ money. The letter from the Governor comes days after Yogi-Adityanath-led UP government asked the estate department to thoroughly scrutinise all five bungalows vacated by former chief ministers following Supreme Court order.

The department was asked to match each item with a checklist so that missing items can be identified. The Chief Minister had also directed an investigation into the damage done to the property where Akhilesh Yadav resided and slap recovery notices on whoever is found guilty.

In its finding, the estate department said that barring Akhilesh’s bungalow, everything was intact in all other bungalows.

"Prima facie, we found nothing missing from the other bungalows nor was anything damaged. Only in Akhilesh's 4 Vikramaditya Marg bungalow, all items installed by the department were missing and a lot of damage was done to government property," said an estate department official.

On Saturday, an Estate Department team had gone to the 4, Vikramaditya Marg residence allocated to Akhilesh Yadav after he left it. Officials, accompanied with photographers, got the residence photographed extensively to show the damages done when the property was being vacated. Officials told IANS that barring a marble temple in one corner of the house, the entire house had been damaged.

Expensive floor and wall tiles, lamination, and marble slabs have been damaged beyond repair and the electricity switch boards, switches have also been ripped off, said an official. All the air-conditioning ducts in the centrally air-conditioned house, which was rebuilt and renovated by the then SP government at the fag end of its tenure, have been plucked out, he added.

The all-weather swimming pool has also been filled with sand while the imported tiles it was lined with have all been broken, an official told IANS. Iron angles can be seen protruding at various places and many gates inside the house have also been damaged, they said.