With Congress president Sonia Gandhi taking serious note of The Indian Express report that external affairs minister S M Krishna and his deputy Shashi Tharoor had made five-star hotels their temporary homes in New Delhi for over three months now, the UPA government on Tuesday asked them to vacate the hotel rooms.
?I have requested both the ministers to vacate the hotel rooms,? finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said at a conference on indirect taxes here. His ?request? came at the behest of Gandhi who, Congress sources said, was ?extremely upset? with the ministers? ?extravagant lifestyle?.
This flew in the face of the party?s much-publicised emphasis on simplicity and austerity in public life, the sources said. Only last month, at the Congress Working Committee meeting, Gandhi had asked party MPs, MLAs and other office-bearers at the Centre and in states to donate 20% of their salaries for drought-relief works.
While Krishna, who was staying in the Presidential suite at ITC Maurya for the last three months, was said to have moved to the Foreign Services Institute guest house, Tharoor was learnt to be checking out of the Taj Mahal Hotel for the Indian Navy guest house in Kota House.
Though Mukherjee had asked the ministers to shift to their respective bhavans, Krishna maintained ?I have made some private arrangements for my stay in Delhi. I will continue to make the same kind of private arrangements till I get my house that is fit enough to be occupied.?
Tharoor, writing on social networking tool Twitter, said he was spending his ?own savings?. ?I would be ashamed if I was spending the people?s money. But I?m not ? I?m spending my own savings,? he tweeted this afternoon.
Tharoor said he would much rather be in his ?official house?. On a suggestion that Kerala House could be a temporary place for stay, Tharoor said, ?I need two things daily and Kerala House doesn?t offerthem ? a gym and some privacy. But I visit pretty often and meet people there.?
Meanwhile, the Congress sought to downplay the issue, saying the ministers were not burdening the public exchequer. ?There was no question of burdening the public exchequer. They have already clarified it,? said AICC spokesman Manish Tewari. He, however, added that the ministers, in their own wisdom, should have taken an appropriate decision.
Referring to Mukherjee?s intervention, Tewari said ministers staying at luxury hotels after the government had announced austerity measures did not send the right signal.
