It's not just the leakage: Why MPs are rooting for the old parliament building

A Times Now anchor on Thursday, 1 July, spoke of a ‘political row over a trickle of water’ in the new parliament building. It has, he said, not yet filled the solitary bucket seen in videos being shared on social media.

He was referring to Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav suggesting in the morning, half in jest, that it might be better to move to the old parliament building for the time being.

The SP leader's post on X followed one by Congress MP Manickam Tagore, who had expressed his intention to move an adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha over the leakage following heavy overnight rains in New Delhi. Apparently, Tagore also planned to ask the Speaker to form a specialised all-party committee to properly inspect the new parliament building.

The new parliament building was designed and executed in record time— less than four years — by Gujarat-based HCP Design, Planning and Management Pvt Ltd, headed by architect Bimal Patel, widely believed to be close to PM Modi. The construction was jointly executed by Tata projects, which was apparently given the contract for its maintenance as well.

Earlier, all government buildings in the Lutyen’s zone in the national capital were designed, built and maintained by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD). The 97-year-old building that had housed India's Parliament till May 2023 was completed in 1927 — and is not doing too badly in the deluge.

Explaining his demand for a special team to inspect the new building, Manickam Tagore maintained that the old parliament building had also experienced rainwater leakages in 2010 — and the then-Speaker, Meira Kumar, had constituted a committee of MPs to look into various aspects.

“This is not the home of the prime minister or of a single party, it belongs to all parties and all MPs,” he said. The new parliament building is, however, said to be the brainchild of PM Modi.

The design of the new building has been coming under increasing criticism and scrutiny. Several journalists who are regulars on the Parliament beat have also been vocal in highlighting its design flaws.

Television anchor and columnist Rajdeep Sardesai posted on X that 'the haste with which the new building was constructed, singularly unaesthetic and with no character, while the wonderfully distinctive and charming old parliament building and iconic central hall lie mostly unused, is saddening. Tax payers’ money going literally down the drain.'

Another veteran newsman, Shakeel Akhtar, recalled that last year also the new building had suffered from waterlogging, so much so that Sansad TV’s PCR too was filled with water.

Nobody wants to answer today, he complains of the agency which approved the design of the new building. Alleging that the new building is a security risk, he points out that it is closed on all sides, with few openings and exits.

When Parliament is in session, the building holds several thousand people, including approximately 4,000 employees and security personnel. The design, however, is such that in case of an accident or emergency, people inside are more likely to get trapped within, he believes: They would not be able to exit as easily as they could from the old building.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has also gone on record to state that as and when the INDIA bloc forms the government, it would be a priority to shift Parliament back to the old building.

The new building neither boasts a central hall, which was open to MPs from both houses as well as to senior journalists, nor a separate gallery in the Lok Sabha for MPs from the Rajya Sabha.

Both visitors and journalists have complained about restrictions in the new building, which has just one canteen for all employees, visitors and the media — with no provision for seating.

Entry to the new parliament building is also so restrictive that neither former MPs nor researchers, students and journalists have free access. Even press photographers’ movements are restricted. Quite unlike the old building, where the media could interact with even the prime minister in addition to ministers and MPs. The new building allows no such encounters.

Unlike in the old building, AIR-DD and news agencies like PTI and UNI have not been allotted rooms — with the result that even these ‘official media’ have to rush to the old building to actually transmit their news.

Neither the Lok Sabha nor the Rajya Sabha has any Press Advisory Committee any more either. Nor has any space been allotted for mediapersons to sit and work on their live reports from Parliament.