Sheila Dikshit rout completes Congress disgrace

NEW DELHI: Sheila Dikshit, three-time CM of Delhi, has weathered quite a few political storms in her career.

But Sunday dealt her a blow that few had predicted — she was humbled in New Delhi constituency, her borough for 15 years, by debutant Arvind Kejriwal. What was shocking was the margin of her defeat — 25,864 votes! It is almost the same as her margin of victory of two elections in 2003 and 2008 put together.

Even in her victory Dikshit had never polled as many votes as Kejriwal who got 44,269 votes this time. In 2003, she had polled 25,156 votes while her nearest rival Poonam Azad of BJP got 12,221 votes.

In 2008, after her Gole Market constituency was renamed New Delhi, Dikshit polled 39,778 votes against BJP’s Vijay Jolly’s 25,796. Dikshit has been credited for Delhi’s turnaround as a world class city.

Be it the transport system or Bhagidari, she has spearheaded many schemes. But in her third term, Dikshit was mostly in the fire-fighting mode, be it graft charges over 2010 Commonwealth Games or the Dec 16 gangrape case or price increases.