I can lead in Delhi if party asks, says Sheila Dikshit

NEW DELHI: With the Lok Sabha elections a few months away and her party facing a leadership crisis in Delhi in the aftermath of the

Pradesh Congress Committee

chief Ajay Maken expressing his inability to continue on ground of poor health, former chief minister Sheila Dikshit said she can assume the responsibility. She told TOI she would not shy away if the high command asked her to lead the team in the capital.


“It is for the party high command to decide. If I am given the opportunity to serve the party, I would not say no,” the three-time Delhi chief minister told TOI on Thursday.

Setting aside speculation that she might not return to active politics after a poll debacle at the hands of Aam Aadmi Party in 2015 and her recent heart surgery, Dikshit (80) said she was recovering fast, meeting a lot of people at her

Nizamuddin East

residence every day and had also started going out.

“I am a CWC member. I could not campaign for the party in the assembly elections because of the surgery. But I am not the one to shy away from any responsibility given to me by the party high command,” she said.

Dikshit, however, added it was for the party leadership to decide if it really wanted to make a change at the top at such a crucial time when the elections were round the corner. “Today, Congress is not taken very seriously in Delhi. Also, you need somebody (as DPCC president) who can take everyone along. Keeping all these factors in mind, the party may decide to let Maken continue,” she said.

Maken had submitted his resignation to party president Rahul Gandhi in September this year before going abroad for a health check-up and had reiterated his unwillingness to head Delhi Congress a few days later. The former union minister, however, continues to be the state Congress chief.

Dikshit said the party’s electoral success in the recent assembly elections in three big states in the Hindi heartland had given it a fresh impetus and it would definitely help it make a comeback in Delhi. It was wiped out in the 2015 assembly elections and routed 7-0 in the 2014 parliamentary elections. “The Congress’ win in the three larger states has given a lot of confidence to the people and the party workers alike. The people have realised the value of Congress. The recent results will definitely have an impact in Delhi too where the party is well set for the 2019 elections,” Dikshit said.

Though the party tasted some success in the 2017 municipal elections, it is now not even a shadow of what it was between 1998 and 2013.