By Baldev S. Chauhan, IANS
Shimla : Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s daughter Priyanka has got the go-ahead to build a house in a high security zone on the outskirts of this city.
Official sources here said Priyanka had applied for permission through the Shimla district magistrate’s office to build a house at the edge of the Retreat, the president’s summer house in Wildflower Hall, about 15 km uphill from here.
In her request a couple of months ago, Priyanka had pleaded that she be allowed to build a house near the Retreat as she herself was in the Z security category and would be safe living there.
Officials said the papers were forwarded to Rashtrapati Bhavan, which has granted her permission to build a two-storied house. Rashtrapati Bhavan officials in New Delhi declined to comment though there was no outright denial.
According to the order issued late last week by the state government, construction of the house will have to begin in the next couple of years; and there must also be accommodation built within the house for SPG (Special Protection Group) staff and domestics, the source said.
A nearly two-km-long road leading to the isolated house site had been built overnight during the last few weeks of the outgoing Congress government. The around one-acre patch of land was reportedly bought by Priyanka, who is married to businessman Robert Vadra, for around Rs. 4.7 million (Rs 47 lakhs) last year. But Rashtrapati Bhavan needed to give the green signal for building a new house.
Though only locals are allowed to purchase land in rural Himachal by law, the previous Congress-ruled state had made an exception in the case of Priyanka. Priyanka has been visiting the Wildflower Hall and Retreat since she was a child, accompanying her parents – Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi – and grandmother Indira Gandhi.