State Govt to acquire Bantony Estate

The Himachal Pradesh gov­ern­ment acquir­ing her­itage build­ing Bantony Estate in Shimla, fear­ing it might be lost otherwise.

Bantony Estate, near Scan­dal Point on Shimla’s famous Ridge, was the sum­mer palace of the erst­while Maharaja of Sir­maur, whose coat-of-arms can still be seen in the cast-iron rail­ing in front of the house. Bantony was bought by the maharaja of Sir­maur from its British owner Cap­tain Gor­don to build his Ridge-top sum­mer house in 1880.

Dur­ing BJP tenure, the prop­erty was pur­chased by a London-based Indian busi­ness­man in 2011 to give way to an ultra-luxurious spa. How­ever, then oppo­si­tion Con­gress had vehe­mently opposed the move and had alleged polit­i­cal link-up in it.

State Govt to acquire Bantony Estate