How a Political Party’s Office Got Bangalored

The Karnataka High Court has asked the JD-S to turn over its premises to the Congress

The Karnataka High Court has asked the JD-S to turn over its premises to the Congress

The Janata Bhavan in Bangalore is a beautiful two-storied stone building on Race Course Road. It functions as the Janata Dal-Secular’s head office in the state and has been under possession of the Janata parivar for the past 40 years. It was here that former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda decided to sever ties with the Janata Dal and float the JD-S. However, as the Karnataka High Court ruled recently, Janata Bhavan is in fact not Janata Bhavan. It is Congress Bhavan and belongs to the Congress party. The JD-S has been given three months to vacate the premises and hand it over to its rival, the Indian National Congress.

The building first came under Congress possession in 1969, when it was gifted, along with some land around it by a veteran Congressman, A Rangaswamy, to the Bangalore City Congress Committee. It was then named Congress Bhavan. In the same year, when the Congress split into two parties—one led by Indira Gandhi and known as INC (J) and the other, INC (O), headed by S Nijalingappa—–the building came to be occupied by the INC (O). The party continued to occupy this property despite a 1971 Election Commission ruling, and subsequently a Supreme Court ruling, that recognised the INC (J) as the original Congress. Later, the INC (O) merged with several non-Congress groups to form the Janata Party, which continued to occupy the building.

The Congress party approached the Judiciary to regain control of the building. In 2005, a trial court ruled in favour of it, but the JD-S took the matter to the Karnataka High Court. On 11 October, a division bench comprising Justices N Kumar and VS Appa Rao upheld the trial court’s ruling. Incidentally, when the legal battle over the building began, JD-S’s state president was Siddaramaiah. Today, he is a member of the Congress party and Karnataka’s Chief Minister as well. The JD-S’s current president, HD Kumaraswamy, Deve Gowda’s son, has declared that his party will approach the Supreme Court for justice.