Had that not been the case, ULCRA of 1976 would never have been passed. In retrospect, ULCRA financed many election campaigns. Messing up urban land (and real estate) markets also brings in building regulations and tenancy laws. But the core is availability of urban land and its use: DDA offering 25 per cent of available land on the market, thus creating artificial shortages. In Chholegate, plots were meant for resettlement of slum-dwellers. There are indeed problems with identifying slum-dwellers who deserve titles: 40 per cent of Delhi’s population lives in slums, but not all slums are authorised and legal problems consequently arise.

Having said this, what kind of titles were these identified slum-dwellers given and how did these titles land up in Ashok Malhotra’s hands? Globally, there are diverse models of successfully solving urban slum-dweller problems. In some, private developers are given titles, with guaranteed dwelling units for poor, the rest used for commercial purposes, with joint management. In others, slum-dwellers are given land plots, with or without lock-in periods for sale. Delhi followed none of these but adopted something perceived as successful in India. The multiple slum-dwellers were all fictitious. With forged identity papers, Ashok Malhotra and DDA created fake poor. There’s a lesson here for politics that goes far beyond whether Sonia Gandhi sided with Sheila Dikshit or her detractors. But there’s no incentive in politics, in Delhi or Mumbai or elsewhere, to learn that lesson.