On 22 May 2026, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs issued an eviction order directing the historic 113-year- old Delhi Gymkhana Club to vacate its 27.3-acre Lutyens’ Delhi premises by June 5. The government cited an urgent necessity to reclaim the land for “strengthening and securing defence infrastructure,” governancerelated needs, and “vital public security purposes”.
In response, club members and staff mounted a legal challenge. While the Delhi High Court declined to grant an immediate stay on the eviction, it mandated that the government must follow due legal process and provide prior notice before taking any forcible possession of the iconic property. The government’s eviction order has ignited a fierce debate, pitting the preservation of colonial-era heritage and elite club culture against the state’s prerogative to reclaim prime public land for defence and national security.
While the Gymkhana members protest the abrupt takeover of the Lutyens’ Delhi property and its impact on 14,000 members, proponents of the move welcome the repurposing of highly subsidized land away from exclusive privilege toward broader public use. Ironically, this eviction order has drawn critical attention to the sheer extravagance of political housing in Lutyens’ Delhi. While the Gymkhana Club is a social asset utilized by thousands of members, military veterans, and civil servants, Lutyens’ Delhi bungalows are the personal, taxpayer-subsidized domains of individuals.
The juxtaposition is glaring: the government invokes “public purpose” and strategic necessity to dismantle a historical social institution, yet it hardly exercises the same urgency when it comes to reclaiming or rightsizing the expansive, sprawling acreages assigned to Ministers and MPs. In Delhi, holding public office is inextricably linked to grand, estate-style living. Historical bungalows in the capital feature thousands of square feet of living space, sprawling lawns, and extensive staff quarters. Ministers and Members of Parliament pay only a nominal “licence fee”, along with highly subsidized utilities and generous allowances, while the actual market value of these properties is astronomical.
This arrangement often creates a severe psychological divide between the political class and the everyday citizens they represent. While the intention behind this perk was to ensure that lawmakers from diverse economic backgrounds have a secure base to perform their legislative duties, it has transformed into a symbol of entrenched elite status. By moving against the Delhi Gymkhana Club, the government has unwittingly opened a Pandora’s box, prompting the public to ask a highly uncomfortable question: if a 27-acre social club must be surrendered for national necessity, why should single-family political mansions remain untouched?
Thus, the government’s eviction of the iconic club has sparked a broader debate over who holds prime Lutyens’ real estate. This assertion of state power has inadvertently shifted the spotlight onto the massive, sprawling government bungalows occupied by Ministers and Members of Parliament. Sprawling bungalows of Ministers and MPs stand as a unique historical anomaly, contrasting sharply with the compact, heavily regulated housing provided to Ministers and members of national legislative bodies in other major democracies.
In the United States, only the President and the Vice President are provided official residences (The White House and Number One Observatory Circle respectively). Cabinet members and other high-ranking officials do not receive government housing. They live in their own homes, which are heavily fortified and upgraded for security by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. This eliminates the concept of state-owned “sprawling estates” for the majority of the executive branch. As regards Congressmen, the US does not provide free housing for them. Lawmakers must arrange and pay for their own accommodations in Washington, DC, utilizing their salaries to rent or purchase property in an exceptionally expensive market.
Dozens of U.S. lawmakers live out of their Capitol Hill offices during legislative sessions. They convert their workspaces into makeshift bedrooms by using pull-out sofas, air mattresses, or pull-down beds. Each congressional office includes an attached private bathroom. To take a shower, lawmakers typically walk to the dedicated Members’ gym located in the basement of the Capitol complex. In the UK, a few senior British ministers are provided with official residences. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have official residences (10 and 11 Downing Street respectively).
1 Carlton Gardens, a townhouse located in central London, is traditionally used as the Foreign Secretary’s residence. While the government maintains a few other properties, these are typically smaller, apartment-style, and strictly used as temporary city bases for members of parliament whose constituencies lie outside London. Admiralty House in London is used for government functions and also has flats occupied by some senior ministers. British MPs are not provided official residences.
Instead, MPs whose constituencies are outside the London area receive an accommodation budget to help cover the cost of maintaining a second home or hotel stays. While British MPs can claim parliamentary expenses to cover the “additional costs” of maintaining a second home for work in London, these are strictly audited, capped, and fundamentally intended to offset necessary expenses rather than provide lavish estates. Germany champions a highly decentralized, austere approach to ministerial accommodation. The Chancellor is provided with an official residence (the Federal Chancellery), but it is essentially a functional workspace with a small living area.
Federal ministers generally live in their own homes or rent apartments in Berlin. If they relocate for government work, they are given housing allowances, but they are not given expansive, state- maintained bungalows. The German political ethos strictly avoids visual displays of aristocratic opulence. German lawmakers are responsible for finding their own accommodations while in Berlin. While they are provided with an allowance to cover the costs of a second residence at the seat of government, they must rent privately, ensuring their standard of living remains aligned with that of working professionals. France provides official residences for its leaders, but these properties are grand offices and historical national monuments rather than sprawling personal compounds.
The President resides at the Élysée Palace and the Prime Minister at the Hôtel Matignon. Similar to Germany, other cabinet ministers do not receive sprawling private residences. They are expected to live in standard, private accommodations, or utilize small, strictly utilitarian departmental apartments. French parliamentarians receive a standard salary that covers all their living costs. They must secure their own Parisian apartments. The state does not own or maintain vast, rent-free residential enclaves for its legislators. Federal government ministers in Canada do not get government-provided bungalows or official residences.
Only the Prime Minister is provided with an official residence (24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa). Due to structural and safety issues, the building is currently uninhabitable and the PM has been living at the nearby Rideau Cottage. The only other individuals provided with official government residences in Canada are the Monarch’s representatives: the Governor General (Rideau Hall) and the ten provincial Lieutenant Governors. All Cabinet Ministers must arrange and pay for their own housing. Members of Parliament in Canada do not get free government-owned housing.
If they must maintain two residences (one in their constituency and the other in Ottawa), the government provides expense allowances to offset these costs. MPs whose constituencies are located outside the National Capital Region can claim up to $28,000 annually for housing expenses in Ottawa (such as rent, mortgage interest, or hotels). In China, government ministers and members of the legislature generally do not live in designated official houses; instead, most senior state officials and civil servants are responsible for securing and owning their own housing, with the exception of the very highest-ranking political leaders.
The highest-tier officials, such as Politburo Standing Committee members, are typically accommodated in secure, state-managed compounds or villas, such as the Zhongnanhai complex in central Beijing or Jade Spring Hill in the western suburbs. Cabinet-level ministers heading State Council departments are not automatically assigned government-owned homes. Many either live in properties they have purchased, or in traditional, older government-allocated housing or apartments tied to their respective ministries. Regular members of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) receive fully paid state-funded accommodation in Beijing while attending the annual “Two Sessions” legislative meetings, though they do not receive permanent government-provided housing.
The roughly 2,900 NPC deputies serve on a part-time basis and remain in their normal, day-to-day careers outside of these meetings. During the annual sessions in March, the state covers all travel, dining, and hotel costs, typically housing delegates in specific state guesthouses or designated hotels across Beijing. While politicians in Western democracies navigate housing markets just like their constituents, Indian lawmakers are shielded by an antiquated culture of privilege.
Transitioning toward a consolidated, transparent salary package ~ where Indian MPs are paid a realistic, taxable market-rate salary and held financially accountable for their own housing ~ could reduce the drain on the public exchequer and foster a more egalitarian, accountable democracy. The disparity between the Indian system and those of the US, UK, Germany, France, Canada and even China exposes a fundamental divergence in political philosophy. In India, a government bungalow operates as a tangible display of state power – a vestige of colonial-era administration where authority was meant to be imposing.
The maintenance of these massive properties requires a significant diversion of public funds, a reality that sits uncomfortably in a developing nation fighting inequality. By insulating lawmakers from the housing and living realities faced by the electorate, the nominal-rent system threatens to disconnect representatives from public grievances. Because housing is highly subsidized, the government loses massive amounts of potential revenue, and the highly coveted Lutyens’ bungalows have historically been used as tools of political patronage.
Summing up, the controversy surrounding the government’s recent decision to reclaim the Delhi Gymkhana Club land has reignited a much broader national debate regarding entrenched elitism and state privilege. For critics, the club’s decades-long occupation of prime real estate at a nominal rent is emblematic of an archaic entitlement culture. This friction has led prominent commentators to argue that India must move beyond the imperial-era mindset of granting sprawling, subsidized bungalows and perks to Ministers, MPs, and even top bureaucrats.
Furthermore, the entitlement mentality often outlasts a lawmaker’s tenure, leading to long-term unauthorized occupation and rent disputes. In a modern, democratic society, public land and state resources should be redirected toward national security or broad public welfare, rather than functioning as private enclaves for the Ministers and MPs. Evicting the Delhi Gymkhana Club while allowing ministers and MPs to continue occupying their acres of privilege would unfairly target an exclusive private enclave for consuming prime public land while ignoring sprawling, taxpayer-funded estates retained by the political class.
(The writer, a retired IFS officer, served as India’s Ambassador to Kuwait and Morocco and as Consul-General in New York. He is a member of the Delhi Gymkhana Club)