The Hindu : New Delhi News : Resentment clouds Sheila's 7 years in office

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 14, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Resentment clouds Sheila's 7 years in office

Sujay Mehdudia

Sharp divisions in Cabinet, distance with high command increases, developmental projects stalled

NEW DELHI: Mounting resentment in the Congress Legislature Party, sharp divisions in the Cabinet, confrontation between the party and the Government, increasing distance with the Congress high command and stalled developmental projects mark completion of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's seventh year in office here on Wednesday.

Coupled with this is a strong resentment among the people and their elected representatives over the deteriorating power and water situation in the Capital and the failure of the Delhi Government to rein in the private power distribution companies. Political observers feel that all these have hurt the image of the party as well as the Government, something that looked impossible after Ms. Dikshit was swept to power in the December 2003 Assembly polls for a record second time.

Party members say that the situation is such that hardly any celebrations have been planned on completion of the Government's seventh year in office. Instead, the Chief Minister is trying to work out a strategy on how to tackle the rising resentment within the party during the upcoming December 17 CLP meeting.

Party insiders are of the view that Ms. Dikshit was losing her grip over the administration and has now started targeting her own ministerial colleagues by promising a Cabinet reshuffle to her loyalist group. The sharp divisions in the Cabinet could be gauged from the fact that she sent a missive to Finance Minister A. K. Walia castigating him for not handling the maintenance of roads and flyovers properly. This when the Government lists flyovers and good roads as its main achievements.

Not only Dr. Walia, even Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely and Transport Minister Haroon Yusuf have been targeted.

According to political observers in the Capital, Ms. Dikshit has also failed to fulfil promises made to the people in the party manifesto for regularisation of unauthorised colonies, grant of Statehood to Delhi and rehabilitation of industrial units affected by the Supreme Court orders. Ms. Dikshit has often laid the blame at the doorstep of the Union Government for not addressing the various matters pending with it. "The fact that Ms. Dikshit has failed to convince her own UPA Government on important matters itself is an indication of the increasing distance between her and the party high command. The manner in which she was made to fall in line in April this year after having walked out of the party meeting is indicative of her declining clout with the party leadership,'' a senior Minister stated. Apart from this, the Government and the ruling party stand poles apart, hardly seeing eye to eye with each other on important matters.

Agitation

What has been one of the biggest setbacks for Ms. Dikshit, observers feel, is the stagnation of the much talked about Bhagidari scheme with its stakeholders coming out on the streets against the Delhi Government. Most of the RWAs have come down heavily on the Government on the power and water issue and now have threatened to launch an agitation.

The Government is so wary of the "bhagidars" that it has for months shied away from holding Bhagidari meetings. However, insiders in the party feel that Ms. Dikshit's undoing has been the mishandling of the power and water issues and its failure to stand up for the consumers on these important issues.

There has hardly been any effort to provide relief to the common man and if at all there was a rollback in power tariffs, it was under pressure from the party and the high command.

Apart from the "bhagidars", the MLAs too are very vocal on the power and water issues and saying that "if elections are held today, the party will lose power in Delhi".

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