CONG WORKERS PROTEST AGAINST AMIT SHAH

Ramtek, the sprawling, sea-facing bungalow on Narayan Dabholkar Road in Mumbai's posh Malabar Hill, has a bit of a reputation for being unlucky for its high-profile ministerial residents.

- Yogesh Naik

MUMBAI: Its suspected jinx stems from the fact that every minister who has occupied this rambling, colonial-style property has either lost their ministerial berths or faced corruption charges - in the last 29 years.

So why would Pankaja Munde, Maharashtra's environment minister, swap her newly allotted official accommodation, Chitrakut, for Ramtek? Munde has traded bungalows with revenue minister Chandrashkhar Banwakule, who readily agreed.

Ramtek's jinx is the talk of political circles every time a new ministry takes office. Vilasrao Deshmukh, who occupied the bungalow as a minister in the Congress government led by Sharad Pawar, lost the election in 1995. When the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance came to power in 1995, the bungalow was allotted to Gopinath Munde, who was then deputy chief minister. Munde had to vacate the bungalow in 1999, when the alliance lost the election. He never returned to power in the state as the saffron alliance was not re-elected until 2014. Munde died in a car accident that same year.