The House of Ms Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday alleged that a political party has paid advance money to contract killers to assassinate her and had even recced around her house for this.

Banerjee’s house in south Kolkata’s Harish Chatterjee Street has been a matter of great interest, endless debates and discussions for ordinary people, and a major concern for the police for many years.

She has always lived in her single-storeyed house on 30B Harish Chatterjee Street, and refused to move out even when the house needed repairs. The security of the house, with the Tolly’s Nullah on one side and a main thoroughfare on the other side, has been a cause of worry. There are houses on three sides of her house standing cheek by jowl along the narrow lane.

Not only are there concerns over the security surrounding the house, the house itself requires repairs. In November 2016, the CM had somewhat reluctantly agreed to move out temporarily to make way for repairs for the house. During this time, she was expected to move to a government accommodation. A hunt was on to get an accommodation close to Nabanna, from where the state administration functions. But eventually, she continued to stay in her house even as security officers keep insisting that the house must be repaired urgently.

Banerjee has always lived in the Harish Chatterjee Street house. Many VIPs, including former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has visited her in this house.

Chief ministers in West Bengal have mostly stayed in their own houses, and there has never been an official residence of the Bengal CMs. Banerjee’s predecessor Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, has lived in a tiny rented government flat in Palm Avenue for many years. The chief minister before him, Jyoti Basu, initially lived in his Hindustan Park house, but later moved to Salt Lake’s Indira Bhawan.

Indira Bhavan had been built in 1972 primarily as a guest house for the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi when she visited the city. Later, however, the Left Front government allotted the house for Basu where he moved in in August 1989. He continued to live there till his death in 2010.

The houses of Bengal chief ministers have always been matters of curiosity and concern. But perhaps none has been as discussed as Mamata Banerjee’s house, especially because of the security issues. With Banerjee’s comments yesterday, this is being discussed all over again.

In recent times, the security around her house has been beefed up several notches. Banerjee gets Z-plus security, but she is known to dislike the security protocol and has often broken it herself. Since her tenure as the railway minister, her security is handled by some handpicks officers whom she trusts completely.