New Delhi: Former chief minister Sheila Dikshit led the Congress to three successive electoral victories in Delhi, but the late Congress leader is seemingly finding no mention in the party’s campaign for the upcoming assembly polls.
Dikshit’s pictures are absent in the posters released by the Congress’ Delhi unit at the launch of its ‘guarantees’ as a key part of the election campaign.
Neither did the three-time chief minister figure in any of the video clips that were played during the guarantees announcements, which include the party’s promise to give Rs 2,500 per month to women under the Pyari Didi Yojana and Rs 25 lakh health cover for all under the Jeevan Raksha Yojana, if it is voted to power.
Similarly, the posters and banners at the Delhi Congress office on Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg also do not feature Dikshit.
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Sandeep Dikshit, the late chief minister’s son and the Congress candidate from the New Delhi assembly constituency, took a dig saying that it was the party’s “new way of branding”.
“They are trying to project some kind of modern image of Delhi and using her in a background. See, it’s not a big issue that she is not on a poster. Every road, every college, every hospital in Delhi is a testimony to her. Maybe, the party would use her photos later in the campaign,” he told ThePrint.
The two-time MP refused to be drawn into whether he felt angered after seeing the party’s poll paraphernalia. “As of now I am only focused on my constituency. We are using her (Sheila Dikshit) photos in our posters in my constituency. I cannot comment on any other constituency,” he added.
Sandeep will be looking to exact revenge this time as his mother, a Congress veteran, had lost to Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal in 2013 and 2015 from this high-profile constituency. Moreover, Sandeep will be facing another formidable opponent in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Parvesh Verma.
Several of the Congress functionaries, including Delhi unit president Devendra Yadav, ThePrint spoke to play it down even as a section of the party asserts that giving no place to Dikshit is not a “wise” move.
“See, we are focusing on our fight against both the AAP and the BJP. Sheila ji is in our hearts. We are taking her work to every house of Delhi. As of now, we are focusing on bringing the guarantee announcements so that the public vote for us,” Yadav told ThePrint.
Delhi will vote on 5 February, while the results will be announced on 8 February.
“We are promoting the Pyari Didi guarantee but not giving space to Sheila didi on posters. It is quite unfair. On the ground, the public still talks about her work. To counter Kejriwal’s work, we should talk about the Sheila government’s work. For this, we must carry pamphlets and posters with her pictures,” a senior functionary of the Delhi Congress told ThePrint.
The functionary added that in December 2013, after being voted out of power in Delhi, Dikshit had blamed party infighting as one of the key reasons for the Congress’s poor performance. “This infighting is still going on.”
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Unwilling to touch the past?
Explaining the situation, a senior Delhi Congress leader elaborated that any mention of the late leader could provide ammunition to attack the party in the election campaigning.
“If we talk much about Sheila Dikshit, then the AAP will blame us for the CWG scam, the Nirbhaya incident, etc. We want to focus on our campaign on the theme of ‘Congress ki guarantee’, which the party is doing in every poll-bound state. So, we do not want our campaign to go in a different direction. When the AAP is talking about free electricity, women scheme etc, then we have the ‘Congress ki guarantee’ for a counter,” the leader told ThePrint.
Hinting at Devendra Yadav and former Congress state head Ajay Maken, the functionary said that those leading the campaign were also “not very accommodating to the Sheila Dikshit lobby”. “Everyone knows, so it was natural,” the functionary added.
“You will find Maken ji on every poster in Delhi as he is not just a senior leader of the Delhi Congress but also controlling the purse of the party as the treasurer. So, all these posters, banners etc campaign at last gets final approval from the senior leadership including the treasurer,” another Congress functionary said.
But like Sandeep Dikshit, Anil Bhardwaj said that his poll campaign would feature the three-time CM’s pictures. “I will use the photos of Sheila ji in my posters during the campaign. I personally feel that the people still relate to the development work that happened under her. Kejriwal has made everyone fool. Now, people are talking about Sheila ji’s work. So, we all will use her photos in the campaign,” the Congress candidate from Sadar Bazar told ThePrint.
The Congress election campaign, according to political observer and author Rasheed Kidwai, in Delhi still looks unclear.
“Some leaders are talking about Sheila Dikshit’s work and some are promoting the guarantee schemes. The central leadership looks soft towards the AAP, but the local unit is very harsh. So, the overall campaign looks very unclear. Sheila Dikshit was a three-time chief minister. One cannot forget this, but party leaders should come on the same page on various issues related to the Delhi poll campaign,” Kidwai, who wrote about the Congress veteran in his book, ‘Leaders Politicians Citizens: Fifty Figures Who Influenced India’s Politics’, told ThePrint.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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