Jagdeep Dhankhar yet to get an official retirement home

More than a year after he resigned as vice-president, Jagdeep Dhankhar is yet to shift to a government accommodation and continues to live in a private farmhouse owned by Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Abhay Singh Chautala in Delhi’s Chhatarpur, HT has learnt.

According to top-ranking officials in the administration, no house has been allotted to him so far. When asked, Dhankhar’s office did not comment if any allotment had been proposed since he stepped down as vice president.

Dhankhar abruptly resigned late evening on July 21, 2025, hours after he admitted an Opposition-sponsored notice in the Rajya Sabha to set up a probe panel against former Delhi high court judge, justice Yashwant Varma, even as the Lok Sabha had admitted a similar notice backed by all parties. Dhankhar said in his resignation letter to President Droupadi Murmu that he wanted to “prioritise health care and abide by medical advice”. Opposition leaders, however, alleged that he was forced to quit.

According to the vice-president’s pension, housing and other facilities rules, “A retired vice-president shall be entitled without payment of rent to the use of furnished residence…at the station of his choice, anywhere in India, without payment of water and electricity charges for the remainder of his life. At places where government-owned accommodation is allotted to a retired vice-president, the residence shall be a Type-VIII bungalow, and if the highest type of government-owned accommodation available at a particular place is smaller in size as compared to a Type-VIII bungalow, the highest type of accommodation available at that place shall be allotted to the retired vice-president.”

The residence is drawn from the General Pool/GPRA stock, under the special entitlement applicable to former Vice-Presidents, who have to file a request with MoHUA for obtaining the accommodation. If a former VP wants a residence where type VIII is unavailable, they are eligible for the highest class of central government housing. If there is no government housing, the Centre can lease an accommodation of 2,000 sq ft of living area.

Dhankhar’s predecessor, M Venkaiah Naidu, demitted office on August 11, 2022 and in October, he shifted to a sprawling bungalow at 1, Thyagraj Marg, along with his family.

That bungalow was earlier occupied by former Union minister D Sadananda Gowda.

Six weeks after his retirement, Dhankhar shifted to a farmhouse owned by Abhay Chautala on September 1, 2025. Abhay is the son of former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala. People close to Dhankar said it was an interim arrangement, but a year later, it continues.

Dhankhar was the first VP to reside in the newly-built VP enclave on Church Road. Months after he retired, officials of the estates department had indicated that a Type-VIII bungalow—the most spacious ones in Lutyens’ Delhi-- was kept ready for him.

HT reached out to Union minister for housing and urban affairs Manohar Lal Khattar for a comment but did not get a response.

Officials at the ministry of housing and urban affairs said that the newly introduced secretariat of capital development was not apprised of a request from Dhankhar.

The new secretariat heads every aspect of Delhi’s land and estate under the central government. Officials at directorate of estates — a subordinate office of MoHUA which directly deals with day-to-day operations of general pool accommodation — said the request, if made at all, may have been initiated at the ministerial level and has not been communicated to them. An official HT spoke to said they were not sure if Dhankhar approached the office of the directorate of estates.