Lutyens’ bungalow that served as TMC base in Delhi vacated

NEw DelhiThe Trinamool united states congress has missed its alkali in new delhi, with Barrackpore Lok Sabha MP Partha Bhowmick vacating his cottage at 20, Dr Rajendra Prasad Road that served as the party’s de facto Delhi headquarters—delivering a fresh blow to a party facing the prospect of a split.A Lok Sabha Secretariat allotment order dated June 9, 2026 assigned Bhowmick Flat No. 501, Hooghly block (Type VII accommodation) as his new official residence. The order replaces the Type VI bungalow at Dr Rajendra Prasad Road that he previously occupied and used as the party’s operational base. The MP himself requested the shift.Bhowmick is among the 19 TMC MPs who signed a formal letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s office on May 18 seeking recognition as a separate parliamentary group. He was also among the rebel MPs who met BJP leaders in Delhi.With the bungalow now locked, TMC posters have been shifted to the South Avenue residence of Rajya Sabha MP Nadimul Haque.The TMC has historically managed its Delhi presence not from a dedicated headquarters but from residences allotted to senior leaders. Earlier, the party’s Delhi activities were coordinated from the South Avenue residence of former leader Mukul Roy. After his exit from the party, the operational centre shifted to the official home of Abhishek Banerjee, before eventually moving to Bhowmick’s bungalow on Dr Rajendra Prasad Road.Bhowmick and Haque did not respond to HT’s queries. At the South Avenue residence of Rajya Sabha MP Haque, staff told HT that “they had only just been instructed to bring all documents, office material and equipment to the new location and to shift the furniture”.The loss of the bungalow is compounded by a statutory disadvantage the party brought upon itself. The Election Commission withdrew the TMC’s national party status in April 2023, reducing it to a state party. Under a Union government policy established by the Land and Development Office, recognised national parties are eligible to obtain land in Delhi for constructing a party office, with parties required to vacate any government bungalow used as an office within three years of receiving that land or upon completing their new office building. As a state party, the TMC’s entitlement to dedicated office space in Delhi under this framework is far weaker. The party has never constructed an independent party office in the capital, making it perpetually dependent on the residential allotments of its MPs — an arrangement now crumbling along with the party itself.Bhowmick himself is a first-term MP, having won Barrackpore in the 2024 general election, defeating BJP’s then-sitting MP Arjun Singh. That he now anchors the rebellion’s Delhi logistics — and has formally surrendered the party’s last fixed address in the capital — underscores how comprehensively the TMC’s parliamentary infrastructure has unravelled.With neither a statutory claim to dedicated office space as a state party, nor a bungalow from a loyal senior MP available as a substitute, the Trinamool Congress faces the prospect of operating in New Delhi without a fixed address at the moment it needs one most.