The Hindu : New Delhi News : Now, `feel good' engulfs Congress

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 28, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Now, `feel good' engulfs Congress

By Our Staff Reporter

The Congress Lok Sabha candidates from Delhi with party leaders Ch. Prem Singh, Ahmed Patel and the Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, in New Delhi on Tuesday. — Photo: R.V. Moorthy

NEW DELHI, APRIL 27. The atmosphere was electric and the broad smiles on the faces of the Congress candidates for the seven Lok Sabha seats from Delhi said it all. The Congress camp is clearly in a buoyant mood as far as Delhi is concerned and this was quite evident at a get-together of all the seven contesting Congress candidates at the local party office here.

Lined up for a media interaction were the party leader in charge of Delhi, Ahmed Patel, the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, the DPCC president, Chaudhary Prem Singh, and a number of other leaders. The upbeat mood and the show of unity gave enough indications of the Congress being on the roll and sure of getting a major chunk of seats in Delhi. The enthusiasm among the party cadres who had gathered on the occasion was also very much visible indicating a positive shift in the mood within the party. In fact, in comparison to the subdued atmosphere prevailing in the Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party camp, the "feel good factor" was evident in the Congress camp. It was after a long time that the DPCC office had come alive with activity and showed signs of being involved in the polls. The contesting candidates, flashing victory signs, exuded confidence that they would trounce the BJP opponents in the May 10 Lok Sabha polls.

The party candidates from New Delhi and East Delhi, Ajay Maken and Sandeep Dikshit, were presented as "youth power" by Mr. Patel, while the former Union Minister, Jagdish Tytler, and the senior Congress leader, Sajjan Kumar, were termed as formidable candidates and veterans of many political battles. The legal brains in the fray, R.K. Anand and Kapil Sibal, were quite optimistic about their chances in the polls. In fact, Mr. Sibal, who is contesting from Chandni Chowk, termed his fight as a no-contest and said he was confident of his victory.

The Chief Minister said the party's fortunes were on the upswing in Delhi and the development-oriented agenda of the Congress would yield a rich harvest.

In fact, in a clear departure from the present trend of using the glamour world to garner votes, Mr. Sajjan Kumar refused to entertain any film star in his election campaign stating that not much was achieved by their presence and they caused a lot of chaos and derailment of schedule. Mr. Tytler, confident of his victory, said that his opponent had turned jittery by the success achieved during his rounds of the constituency and that is the reason he was indulging in baseless allegations. Mr. Maken, contesting from the New Delhi seat, said his campaign of youth versus the old guard had made his opponent jittery. He claimed that the campaign launched by him for getting the demands of the Central Government fulfilled had been a big success.

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