After 47 years, Congress is moving to a new office today.

Delhi: After 47 years at 24 Akbar Road, which came to represent the 139-year-old party and saw a major portion of its recent history, the Congress will relocate its headquarters to 9A Kotla Road in New Delhi on Wednesday.Sonia Gandhi, the head of the Congress parliamentary party, will open the five-story headquarters on Wednesday, marking the beginning of a new chapter for the party that will leave Lutyens' Delhi just weeks before the February 5 assembly elections in the nation's capital.

According to Congress officials, the new headquarters will drastically reduce Akbar Road's open and friendly atmosphere, which allows the media and party workers to operate with little restrictions.

Two Congress leaders claim that the media will only be able to visit the ground floor of the 9A Kotla Marg building, which is situated on a two-acre tract. This is similar to what the BJP, the party's competitor, has done at its headquarters, which is not far from the new Congress office.

The offices of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, and Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, will be located on the fifth floor of Indira Bhavan.

According to a Congress official, "all three offices will have large space, rooms for secretarial staff, and a centralised air conditioning system."

State in-charges will inhabit the third floor, while general secretaries would have exclusive usage of the fourth floor. The all-India secretaries and their employees will occupy the second floor.

All of the departments and cells will be located on the first floor. The leader also mentioned that there would be a reception, media area, and conference room on the ground floor.

"Outsiders can visit only the ground floor," a senior Congress representative concerned in media matters stated, adding that entry would be limited to the second, third, fourth, and fifth floors. Access to the top floors requires appointments in advance.

Due to the passing of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Congress had originally intended to open the new facility on December 28.

Four hundred party officials from all throughout the nation have been invited to the inaugural ceremony.

Sir Reginald Maxwell, a member of the executive council of Viceroy Lord Linlithgow, used to reside in the home on Akbar Road. When her mother was sent ambassador to India in 1961, it was also the home of a teenage girl named Aung San Suu Kyi, who later became Myanmar's state counselor.

The first Congress members to enter the precincts were a group of 20 workers from the Indira Gandhi-led breakaway Congress on a cold January morning in 1978.

The party won the 1980, 1984, 1991, 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha elections in the large building. The Congress, which is currently out of power in the third consecutive Lok Sabha elections, was also overthrown in the Type VII, one of the biggest mansions in Lutyens' Delhi.