MEIRA KUMAR, daughter of Jagjivan Ram The bungalow at 6 Krishna Menon Road was allotted to the former deputy prime minister; after his death, family was allowed to stay on until earlier this year. STATUS: Eviction notice served; Kumar insists it must be turned into a memorial.

N K.P. Salve is a man of many parts. He used to be the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India; he was a member of the Union council of ministers more than a decade ago; until this

April, he was also a member of the Rajya Sabha, thanks to which he stayed in a colonial bungalow on Aurangzeb Road, a prime property in Delhi's Lutyens' Bungalow Zone (LBZ). As per rules, he should have vacated the bungalow within a month after his term as a member of the Upper House ended. That was in May.

It is August and Salve still hasn't moved out. So, the Ministry of Urban Development (MOUD), which had made the rent-free house available to Salve, has cancelled his allotment and recently sent him a bill of Rs 3.25 lakh for outstanding rent calculated at market rates. Salve has a permanent address in Nagpur and a family house at Delhi's tony Vasant Vihar. His son Harish is the solicitor-general of India and has an official bungalow at 7 Teen Murti Road, also in the LBZ. Still Salve Senior has sought more time at the house, ostensibly on medical grounds.

RAMAKRISHNA HEGDE, former Union minister Hegde ceased to be a member of the Rajya Sabha in April 2002 but continues to live at 83 Lodhi Estate in the heart of Delhi. STATUS: The ministry says eviction notice has been served, but his staff insists they have not been asked to move out.

The story of Salve is oft-repeated in Delhi, with VIPs reluctant-even after Supreme Court directions-to move out. The MOUD has already served eviction notices to eight VIP squatters they have identified so far-the actual number could be several times more. The power and class of the addresses in the wide, tree-lined avenues of the LBZ make the occupants more than disinclined to vacate the bungalows. Typically, a ministerial bungalow stands in the midst of a 2.5-3 acre plot with well manicured lawns, a covered area of anything between 4,000 and 6,000 sq ft, three to four bedrooms, a study and vast drawing and dining rooms and elaborate servant quarters.

Like Salve, former Union minister C.M. Ibrahim, who had a controversial stint as civil aviation minister in the H.D. Deve Gowda cabinet, also ceased to be a Rajya Sabha member in early April, but continues to occupy a Type VIII house at 22 Akbar Road, adjacent to the Congress party headquarters. Earlier this year, the MOUD had begun to charge him rent at market rates and later served him an eviction notice, but till date Ibrahim has neither paid up nor vacated. Last heard, Ibrahim, whose political career seems to have touched a dead end, was aiming to become a media baron with plans for floating an Urdu TV news channel.

RAJNATH SINGH, former Rajya Sabha member Singh quit the Rajya Sabha when he took over as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in November 2000 but retains the bungalow at 38 Ashoka Road. STATUS: Eviction notice served but his aides say the BJP general secretary will not vacate the house.

Ibrahim is in exalted company. Former Karnataka chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde ceased to be a member of the Union cabinet three years ago and a Rajya Sabha member in April this year. Following his exclusion from the Vajpayee Cabinet in 1999, he was made chairman of the Indo-French Joint Commission, a post that gave him the status of a cabinet member. He quit that post but lives on in a bungalow in the prized Lodhi Estate, ignoring the eviction notices served on him. Hegde spends much of his time in Bangalore. His staff at the Delhi residence insist they have not received any eviction notice.

Such notices have been met with similar disdain by former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Rajnath Singh. He quit the Rajya Sabha in November 2000 after he was sent to Lucknow to shore up the BJP's waning chances in the state assembly elections. His inability to win the state for his party did not prevent his elevation as party general secretary last month and 38 Ashoka Road continues to be in his possession.

N.K.P. SALVE, former Union minister Salve's term in the Rajya Sabha ended in April 2002, but he continues to live at 32 Aurangzeb Road. Owns a bungalow in the posh Vasant Vihar area of south Delhi. STATUS: Eviction ordered, but has sought time on medical grounds.

But there are signs that the Government has started putting its foot down. The Cabinet Committee on Accommodation has, therefore, asked the family of former deputy prime minister Devi Lal to vacate the sprawling complex at 100 Lodhi Estate, ignoring the shrill demands to convert the premises into another memorial. A similar request from the family and supporters of Chaudhary Charan Singh to turn the bungalow at 12 Tughlak Road, where he had lived as interim prime minister, into a memorial has been shot down. It has not helped that his son, Ajit Singh, is part of the Union Cabinet.

Though the MOUD is finally wielding the stick, some are clearly not bothered. Like Meira Kumar, a former Congress MP and daughter of Babu Jagjivan Ram, deputy prime minister in the Morarji Desai government and an icon for the Dalits and backward classes. For more than 40 years, the verdant premises at 6 Krishna Menon Road, a two-minute drive from Parliament House, has been home to the family. After Ram's death in 1986, the house was allotted to his widow Indrani Devi. With her death earlier this year, the Government decided to allot the house to a former Supreme Court judge, now on a post-retirement assignment. But Kumar says that so far 381 MPs, cutting across party lines, have signed a memorandum on converting the house where Babuji lived into a memorial for the man who nearly became India's first Dalit prime minister.

C.M. IBRAHIM, former Union minister Ibrahim's term in the Rajya Sabha ended in April 2002 but is still to move out of 22 Akbar Road which was allotted to him as a Deve Gowda cabinet member. STATUS: Eviction notice served, asked to pay market rent. Does neither.

As late as July 6, 2002, barely two weeks before he laid down office, President K.R. Narayanan recommended the case to the prime minister. A.B. Vajpayee needed no such reminder. He was a signatory to a similar memorandum presented to the Narasimha Rao government in the early 1990s. Says Kumar: "I am not going to stay in this house, but I won't allow this place to be used for anything other than Babuji's memorial." Almost echoing Indira Gandhi who converted Teen Murti Bhavan into the Nehru memorial immediately after her father's death to prevent anyone else from taking it over. But, an MOUD official says, "At the rate at which we are making lifetime allotments, half the existing bungalows will soon be occupied by those who have quit office, and not by those who are still in them."

On its part, the MOUD is desperately trying to augment its housing stock. Says Union Minister for Urban Development Ananth Kumar: "I am trying to expedite various housing projects, including building more bungalows in Lutyens' zone." Till that happens, the VIP squatters would do well to draw a lesson from former chief justice of India M.N. Venkatachaliah. Not quite ready to attract any form of criticism, he moved out of his spacious bungalow in the LBZ the day after he quit office. Politicians, of course, are different. They prefer to wait, in anticipation of a comeback even if their voters think they don't deserve one.