This Dikshit is not a politico to be trifled with

Delhi Assembly’s New Delhi constituency this time round is witnessing a battle royal-- between AAP National Convener and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and scions of two political families and chief ministers of the state-- Late Saheb Singh Verma’s son Pravesh Verma, and Late Sheila Dikshit’s son Sandeep Dikshit.

A decade ago, Kejriwal had written the political epitaph of the Congress in Delhi and Sheila Dikshit by unseating him from the constituency and the chief ministership. Kejriwal had been able to have people believe his phantom image as a Knight of Europe’s Middle Ages charging at anyone who he deemed corrupt. He acted as the last prophet and accused all the others who became before him of interpretating the divine messages wrong.

He was so successful in deluding his team and the people that a journalist left his well-paid job and joined AAP, saying that it was a defining moment in Indian politics post-independence. Parting company with India Against Corruption (IAC) campaign face Anna Hazare on joining politics, he held Sheila and the Congress Dikshit’s `graft’ responsible for all the ills ailing Delhi and promised a moon to the people of Delhi. People believed the `muffler man,’ and gave him landslide victory which Delhi had not seen before.

Once settled in the chair, he forgot his main plank and began giving priority to preserving power over fighting corruption. And one by one he made his companions who had dreamed a new politics and fought shoulder to shoulder with him leave the party.

Sheila Dikshit took a political retirement, and Delhi BJP, after having faced double whammy, by the Congress and later from the BJP, were left to lick its wound. For two decades, Kejriwal has a free run in Delhi.

But now all that sheen is off, with him and his ministers facing corruption charges and Delhi experiencing not much tangible changes in the quality of administration. Voters are no more hypnotised of his promises. But being a wily politician, he has changed his tack and taken his populism to a new height announcing a series of beneficiary schemes to keep his support base intact. The Delhi poor and the middle classes had seen in the political incarnation of Kejriwal a redeemer. But that image of him is gone.

It in this backdrop of his waning popularity and people’s disillusionment with him on corruption that he is facing Sheila’s Dikshit son Sandeep Dikshit who has thrown his hat in the ring to challenge him on his home turf to confront him with the same agenda on which he had trounced his mother: Corruption.

Though the fight on paper is triangular, but on the ground, it seems to be a slug between Sandeep and Kejriwal. New Delhi has never been Pravesh Verma’s political constituency. He is seen as an outsider there.  Sandeep is also an outsider in the constituency except that he has the legacy of his mother to talk about.

With government officers constituting about 20 percent of the voters, they are supposed to play an important role in who gets elected. They supported Kejriwal in the past three elections on highly subsidised power and water, but in this round of poll AAP cannot take them for granted. Meanwhile, the Centre had announced the formation of the eighth pay commission and Unified Pension Scheme to woo them.

The Hindutva agenda will also have its impact on the result.  Sensing it, Kejriwal also started on the course of pandering to the Hindutva aspirations. But if the Delhi voters continue to stick to their different choices in the Loka Sabha and Assembly elections, then the Hindutva politics will not have consequential bearing on the election. But the Valmiki community in the constituency is more or less still with Kejriwal. AAP has also been able to attach them with itself by choosing Jhadu (broom} as the party symbol.

The Congress, which was relegated to the third position in the last election, is this time giving Kejriwal a lot of worries. He cannot call the Congress corrupt as he himself and his ministers are now facing graft charges. The other day AAP put up posters in the city calling former Congress president and leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, party Treasurer Ajay Maken and Sandeep Dikshit corrupt. The Congress hit back saying that it is like the pot calling the kettle black.  Good senses prevailed on AAP that this move will pay no political dividends, and he immediately gave a period.

Facing anti-incumbency and corruption charges, Kejriwal is up against a toughest ever fight in his more than a decade-old political career. He is on the back foot on holding back the CAG report on the liquor licensing policy from the Assembly and spending crores of rupees on the renovation of his bungalow. He is leaving nothing to chance. His wife camping and campaigning in the constituency.

The party had to bench several of its sitting MLAs and change constituencies of several others to save the party from anti-incumbency mood. Kejriwal’s former

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has shifted to Patparganj from Jangpura. As the Congress is not in focus under the AAP’s lens, Sandeep has brought in focus his mother’s achievements in giving the Capital a `world class infrastructure. He also reminds that his mother had been able to strike a balance between the Centre and the state and ensured a confrontation-less development for 15 years.

It has been very difficult for Delhi to build infrastructure as several agencies are involved it but Sheila Dikshit made it possible by a commendable coordination among them. Says former Lieutenant-Governor Vijay Kapoor.

 Then Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee and senior Congress leader Ambika Soni had opposed the construction of the Barapullah fly-over on the ground that it would cause harm to the Humayun’s tomb but Sheila Dikshit found a way out of it, says a former Delhi Chief Secretary.

If Sandeep is seeking support on his mother’s services to the city, no one can grudge it. But Kejriwal has his own achievements and his sculpted image of being honest and incorruptible to get the winner tag. Who will cross the finishing line first, Sadeep or Kejriwal. Whomsoever does it, an interesting fight is on the cards.