The Hindu : Sheila seeks Outer Delhi MLAs' views

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 10, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Sheila seeks Outer Delhi MLAs' views

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI, MARCH 9. Setting in motion the process for selection of Congress candidates for the seven Lok Sabha seats from the Capital, the Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, today held consultations with party MLAs from the Outer Delhi parliamentary constituency and sought their views on who the party should field in the polls slated for May 10. Meanwhile, the meeting of the AICC Screening Committee for Delhi headed by senior party leader Shivraj Patil scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed till next week.

The Chief Minister has already held consultations with MLAs from South Delhi, Karol Bagh (SC), New Delhi, Chandni Chowk, Delhi Sadar and now Outer Delhi. Now only the party MLAs from East Delhi are left to be consulted and the whole process then will be wrapped up. The views expressed by the party MLAs and Councillors would be submitted to the party high command for consideration.

It is probably for the first time that the party MLAs and Councillors are being consulted in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. Earlier, the local party unit or the AICC general secretary in charge of the State held such consultations.

All the 15 sitting Congress MLAs from Outer Delhi were summoned to the residence of the Chief Minister as part of the consultation process initiated to gauge the opinion of the elected representatives on the choice of candidate. The MLAs were asked to meet the Chief Minister individually and give their opinion. The MLAs were asked about the prospective candidates, the favourites and what the party should do to win the seat.

It is understood that during the interaction, a large number of party MLAs favoured fielding of a Brahmin from the Outer Delhi seat stating that the influence of the Brahmin voters had increased tremendously during the past few years. It was pointed out that the party had reaped rich dividends in the Assembly polls where a number of Brahmin candidates were fielded who won by handsome margins.

Some of the MLAs also supported the candidature of the former Outer Delhi Member of Parliament, Sajjan Kumar, but by and large the consensus was in favour of a Brahmin candidate. A number of names including that of the sitting MLAs, Mukesh Sharma and S. C. Vats came up. Another opinion was that if a Jat had to be fielded, the party should look towards the Delhi Health Minister, Yoganand Shastri. It is learnt that some of the senior party leaders from Delhi have also held consultations with the Chief Minister during the past two days to discuss the political situation in the Capital.

Interestingly, the names of large number of sitting MLAs have come up during discussions for various Parliamentary constituencies.

On the other hand, the Chief Minister has also taken on record the views of the elected representatives for the New Delhi, South Delhi, Karol Bagh and Chandni Chowk seats. Another important issue that has emerged during these consultations is that majority of the sitting MLAs have opposed the imposition of candidates from the top and have shown preference for the local Congressmen.

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