RTI acTIvIsT Is one-man aRmy agaInsT meIRa KumaR
At this moment, the “United Opposition” Presidential candidate Meira Kumar must be having another look at what one man can do. He is noted Right to Information (RTI) activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal (67). A one-man army, Agrawal, over the years, has collected vast valuable “official data” through his RTI applications, which is enough to put Meira in a difficult situation. Her opponents have been knocking on the doors of his Chandni Chowk home to access the vital information against India’s first woman Lok Sabha Speaker and daughter of one-time Dalit icon Babu Jagjivan Ram. Agrawal has no political leanings. He has politely declined to part with the information. He has decided to put it in public domain through social media. “I have nothing personal against her” Subhash told The Sunday Guardian. It was while pursuing his RTI passion that Subhash Chandra Agrawal stumbled upon facts related to Meira Kumar, first as a Union Minister and later as the Lok Sabha Speaker. He was intrigued by the establishment of “Babu Jagjivan Ram Smriti” at 6, Krishna Menon Marg, a huge Type 8 bungalow in the Lutyens Zone, despite a Cabinet decision by the Atal Behari Vajpayee government that no official bungalow would be converted into a memorial after the death of a leader occupying it. Kumar used to live with her father at this huge property. But Meira continued to remain in the possession of 6, Krishna Menon Marg, even after Jagjivan Ram’s death in July 1986. First, it was allotted to Babuji’s widow, Indrani Devi, though she was not a politician or a sitting Member of Parliament. Babuji was Deputy Prime Minister in the Janata government. So, Indrani Devi was not entitled to live in this bungalow. On records, the bungalow was “unallotted” for more than a decade. The Ministry of Urban Development did not send the file to CAG despite repeated reminders, when the audit watchdog wanted to enquire for keeping a prime property “unallotted” for so long without any reasons. According to Agrawal, after Indrani Devi’s death, the bungalow got “converted” into “an unauthorised memorial” in the father’s name. Agrawal points out that Rs 1.98 crore “rent” due from this property was “waived off” by the Manmohan Singh government and the property was “leased” out to the Babu Jagjivan Ram National Foundation for 25 years in last days of UPA regime. Significantly, he says, this Foundation was set up by Meira Kumar when she was the Minister for Social Justice. “Surprisingly annual-returns have been removed from the Foundation’s website after word spread about possible issues in setting up of the Foundation,” says Agrawal. There are “many more tales” that emerged from Agrawal’s relentless efforts to fetch information from the Estate Department, Central Public Works Department, Ministry of Urban Development and the Lok Sabha Secretariat.