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Sheila back in governance mode

Sujay Mehdudia

Dissident activity in the Congress Legislature Party on the wane

NEW DELHI: With dissident activity in the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) on the wane, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit seems to be back in the governance mode again trying to take control of the administration as well as her flock of legislators.

Political observers here are of the view that dissident activity in the past few months has taken a beating with the majority of the dissident MLAs or leaders charting out their own independent course of action resulting in the entire group getting scattered. Interestingly, even the main dissident leaders have fallen in line and are trying to woo the Chief Minister or mend fences with her in their own way in the hope of getting a Cabinet berth in any further reshuffle or expansion. One of the main dissident leaders and senior Congress MLA Mukesh Sharma had recently invited the Chief Minister for a function in his constituency, indicating a softening of stand.

Similarly, the Chief Minister managed to get the support of former Minister and AICC secretary Pervez Hashmi and former DPCC president Subhash Chopra, who parted ways with the dissidents three months ago and formed their own ginger group. This development has also had an impact on the dissident movement leading to departure of certain MLAs including the Jangpura MLA, Tarvinder Marwah, from the dissident group.

For his part, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Ram Babu Sharma has also received a shot in the arm with Congress president Sonia Gandhi inaugurating Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan, the new headquarters for the local unit of the party. Mr. Sharma, whose removal was being sought by the loyalists in the party, has managed to get the backing of the party high command after having organised a huge workers' rally at Talkatora Stadium in May this year.

Observers are of the view that Ms. Dikshit is now concentrating on handling the administration and governance that had suffered a great deal due to the dissidence movement and the laxity in the bureaucracy.

Sensing the urgency of the situation, the Government is keen to sort out the mess and get on with governance as strong resentment prevails among the people over the mishandling of various issues by the Delhi Government. Observers are of the view that the Government had fared badly on the handling of power and water crises and all this had happened due to the failure of the administration to have a long-term vision of the situation.

"Not only did the Government fail to come up with long-term solutions to such issues, it even failed to find short term measures to tide over the crises," a senior official remarked.

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