In an unprecedented move, the Congress party has announced that it would be shifting its headquarters from 24, Akbar road to the Patiala House court in Delhi.

Speaking to our correspondent, Ajay Maken said, “Well, we have been looking for a new office ever since the Government of India served an eviction notice to our party two months ago. Soniaji had briefly toyed with the idea of merging Congress party HQ with 10 Janpath, but dropped the plan after Rahul baba disagreed with her and threatened to fly to Spain to introspect for the party’s future the moment he returned from his current round of introspection.”

Maken continued, “That’s when the summons for Dr. Manmohan Singh came along from former Patiala House court’s additional sessions judge Bharat Parashar. We realized that Patiala House has already issued summons to Soniaji and Rahulji. And given the way Swamy is after Chidambaram, a summons for him is not far behind either. In fact, in all likelihood, the entire UPA cabinet will be eventually issue summons one by one. We thought why not just pitch our camp there?”

“Obviously, this is in line with the vision of Rahul baba,” Maken hastened to add.

Former Union Minister Kapil Sibal has welcomed the move. “I was getting sick and tired of driving to and fro between the party HQ and Patiala House court every day to defend our leaders. Already I am spending far more on commuting than what I make through fees. With this move, my travel loss is now zero,” grinned Sibal.

The court on its part has gracefully agreed to allocate some space for the party, and has even set up a special Congress-Court cell, which would assign a lawyer from the Congress’ battery of lawyer-ministers to those Congress leaders the Court would summon in the future. The Court has also requested P. Chidambaram to devise a financial system by which the ministers would be able to pay each other’s’ fees.

Elsewhere, up on the peaks of the Himalayas, when one of our correspondents discussed the developments with an unknown bearded gentleman in the fading light over a bag of weed, the said gentlemen took a whiff of his joint, giggled and said, “Headquarters is a state of mind. It doesn’t matter where we have it.”

(Based on this tweet by J. Gopikrishnan)