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Dikshit takes Delhi CM's office with wings clipped
Sheila Dikshit was sworn-in as Delhi Chief Minister yesterday for the record third consecutive term in office along with six other ministers.
- By Ajay Jha, Chief Correspondent
- Published: 23:27 December 17, 2008
New Delhi: Sheila Dikshit was sworn-in as Delhi Chief Minister yesterday for the record third consecutive term in office along with six other ministers.
Credited for leading the Congress party to an impressive victory against heavy odds, Dikshit found herself grounded and her wings clipped with the party central leadership forcing her to take oath with almost her entire old team of ministers much against her desire.
Out of the six ministers included in her council of ministers, five were part of her previous team. Delhi Lieutenant Governor Tejinder Khanna administered oath of office and secrecy to Dikshit at an impressive ceremony at Raj Niwas amidst shouting of slogans by frenzied Congress workers in the afternoon.
While Dr. Ashok Kumar Walia, Haroon Yousuf, Arvinder Singh Lovely, Mangat Ram Singhal and Rajkumar Chauhan retained their berths as ministers, academician Dr Kiran Walia, a close associate of Dikshit, was inducted as the only new minister in place of Yoganand Shastri who was health minister in the previous government.
Consolation
Walia, Yousuf and Lovely were in the line of fire since they had in the past spoken against Dikshit, while she wanted to drop Singhal for non-performance. However, all her efforts to get sanction of the party's central leadership to replace them with new faces failed. Her only consolation being permission to induct Kiran Walia as a minister, which has created imbalance since there are two Punjabis - both Walias now and no representation of the Jat community.
The focus has now shifted on the speaker's post. Dikshit wants Yoganand Shastri to occupy the post in place of veteran leader Chaudhary Prem Singh.
Party insiders say that federal minister Ajay Maken, who is also an office-bearer of All India Congress Committee, played a key role in convincing party chief Sonia Gandhi and her influential political secretary Ahmad Patel for not giving a free hand to Dikshit in selection of ministers. Maken, a former Delhi minister and Diskhit's erstwhile protégé, is now among her rivals in Delhi politics.
What settled the issue against Dikshit was a concerted attempt by a section of the party to project her as a future prime minister of the country, to be third in line after incumbent prime minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia's parliamentarian son Rahul Gandhi soon after she led the party to an improbable victory by bagging 43 seats in the 70-member assembly.
Dikshit being forced to retain old ministers much against her desire is now seen as an attempt by the party's central leadership to curtail her growing ambitions. Party circles say that while Dikshit's image as a development-oriented chief minister was largely responsible for the party's victory.
Opposition: Malhotra is bjp's choice
Prof. Vijay Kumar Malhotra of the Bharatiya Janata Party is all set to take over as Leader of Opposition in the newly-elected Delhi assembly.
Malhotra, an incumbent Member of Parliament from South Delhi seat, had a choice to retain his Lok Sabha seat or enter the assembly following his victory from Greater Kailash assembly seat.
Malhotra, who was deputy leader of the BJP in Lok Sabha, has already submitted his resignation to Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. Through him, the party wants to give a message to the Delhi voters that their senior leaders are not power hungry.
Incidentally, Sushama Swaraj and Madan Lal Khurana faced the same predicament in 1998 and 2003 respectively. Both chief ministers in waiting opted to resign from Delhi assembly after failing to lead BJP to victory. There are suggestions that Malhotra, at 77, preferred assembly over parliament since he was uncertain of his victory in the Lok Sabha polls.
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