Sheila, the leader with iron fist in velvet glove

NEW DELHI: Behind the warm smile and gentle “batao beta” lay a wily political mind with an iron grip over her administration. Three-term chief minister and state party leader Sheila Dikshit tackled thorny issues between Centre and state like the demand for statehood, land disputes and law and order with sophisticated ease.Politics in the Sheila-era was a far cry from the no-holds-barred duel that the city witnessed between the Centre and the AAP government in the past four years. When she unseated Sushma Swaraj from the CM’s seat in 1998, the government at the Centre was headed by BJP. But her amicable relationship with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and deputy PM L K Advani were well known.In an interview to TOI a few months ago, Sheila had said that she would often go to the PM and managed to get her wish list approved with no fuss. “If I go to the PM or the home minister with a list of five things, I would make them agree on three or four,” Sheila had said. It was no empty boast. Sheila was also known for the skillful manner in which she worked in coordination with the bureaucracy, a lesson learnt as the wife of a bureaucrat herself.Recalling an incident, former Delhi transport secretary RK Verma said the UPA government at the Centre once transferred a number of senior IAS officers out of the national capital just ahead of Commonwealth Games when the city administration was struggling to meet the deadline. “Sheila met the then home minister, P Chidambaram, and put her foot down. The home minister had to quash the orders,” said Verma.Verma added she was willing to countenance any departure if they could achieve what was good for the people of Delhi. “She firmly believed that public interest was paramount and for larger public good there was no harm if the ends justified the means,” he said. However, she was quite unhappy when then PM Manmohan Singh constituted an inquiry committee under former comptroller and auditor general VK Shunglu to probe irregularities in Commonwealth Games. She had said that the event that had many “proud moments” was reduced to a “contentious issue”. She had also accused the Centre of providing the logistical and infrastructural requirements late in 2009 which led to hurried preparations.Ironically, she faced stiff competition from her own party leaders. While she was considered an outsider when she was first made president of the state Congress committee in 1998, she earned several enemies when she was made chief minister of Delhi within a span of a few months.Delhi Congress suffered from infighting with several leaders, including Choudhury Prem Singh as Speaker, Ram Babu Sharma as standing committee chairman in MCD and party leader Subhash Chopra, working against her. But over time Sheila succeeded in wearing down the opposition both within the party and outside. “The party veterans despised her but the young brigade supported her. With her style of working, she managed to win over even those who were on the other side of the fence. She was charming and affectionate towards everyone but at the same time commanded lot of respect,” said Arvinder Singh Lovely, her cabinet colleague. “There were also times that her own MLAs openly revolted against her and even staged protests against her. The unwavering support she got from the central leadership and her closeness to the Gandhis did the trick and she managed to neutralise her detractors,” said Sat Pal, information officer in the CMO during her tenure.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2xXes3c