Decks cleared for Dikshit's second term

Selection of ministers unlikely to be an easy task

Sheila Dikshit's name was announced today as the Congress legislature party leader clearing the way for her second tenure as Delhi chief minister after being put through a humiliating five-day wait as the party high command grappled with the problem of dealing with her principal challenger, Chaudhary Prem Singh, a Scheduled Castes leader.

Congress general secretary Ambika Soni, who wields considerable influence in Delhi, was absent when the party announced Dikshit's appointment at the party's 5 pm briefing. Officially, it is Ahmad Patel who deals with matters relating to Delhi.

After all the results of the Assembly elections were out, Dikshit called on Sonia Gandhi to explain to her that the vote in Delhi was a vote for the government's performance. It was not a vote for caste, or electoral manipulation.

Dikshit said the government work in health, education (300 schools computerised, 68 upgraded), roads (26 flyovers constructed and 48 targeted) and environment (green area increased from 26 sq km to 110 sq km) had ensured the party's victory.

A day later, Delhi Congress unit chief Chaudhary Prem Singh met Gandhi and explained that the Congress would have had no chance of winning in Delhi, had it not been for him.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), he claimed had announced that it would set up one candidate in every constituency.

In at least 19 constituencies, the Congress would have lost to the BSP, had they not deployed a Scheduled Caste leader to stem the BSP tide.

Besides, he argued, the BSP was a rising force in northern parts of the country and if the Congress was to make a dent in its Dalit vote bank, it would send a positive signal to appoint a chief minister who was Dalit.

"You brought me here for a task. I have accomplished the task for you," he is reported to have told Gandhi.

Congress sources say Prem Singh's claim was not an idle one. Apparently some kind of assurance had been given to him when he was brought as state party chief months before the Assembly elections replacing Subhash Chopra. The question was: who was fuelling the ambitious streak in him.

Party sources say all Dikshit's rivals - Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler, and even some leaders in the AICC - ganged up against her.

The result was the Congress legislature party met and left the decision to name a chief minister to Gandhi.

Not just that, newly-elected legislators were also told that they could speak to two senior party leaders, Pranab Mukherjee and Ahmad Patel, if they had a view in the matter. So the decision was not just Gandhi's. It was also an open referendum on Dikshit's abilities.

A distressed Dikshit confided in friends yesterday that instead of celebrating its victory, it was as if the party was trying to somehow down grade it and make light of it.

She also said it was not because of Chaudhary Prem Singh that the party had swept the Sikh Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) elections earlier in the year, a clear result of hard work done jointly by Dikshit, party leaders like Dalbir Singh and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.

Now that Dikshit has been elected CLP leader, sources close to her say her biggest task will be to function cohesively as a team.

Prem Singh will also have to be mollified because the Dalit vote will be crucial in the Lok Sabha elections, so his nominees will have to taken on board by her.

The mood in the party headquarters was that given the handling of the whole episode, the top leadership had only demonstrated that it had stooped to conquer.