Sheila congratulates Gupta
Chief minister Sheila Dikshit on Tuesday congratulated Delhi BJP president Vijender Gupta for his party’s spectacular victory in municipal polls and asked him to provide better civic facilities to the people of the city. “Ms Dikshit congratulated Mr Gupta and asked him to keep the faith people have reposed in the BJP by doing good work,” an aide of Ms Dikshit said.
In her brief telephonic conversation, Ms Dikshit promised support of Delhi government to the three newly-set up municipalities curved out of MCD.
The outcome of the polls is seen as huge disappointment for the chief minister who had pushed hard to trifurcate the MCD despite stiff resistance from a number of party leaders who had warned that splitting the 53 year-old body ahead of the polls will cost the party dear.
Ms Dikshit, who had addressed series of rallies across the city and campaigned hard for the polls, had ruled out price rise highlighted by the BJP as an issue but it now appears that the chief minister’s assessment was not entirely correct.
Although Ms Dikshit chose not to react to the poll outcome, her son and East Delhi MP Sandeep Dikshit, attributed his party’s defeat in Delhi civic polls to a disconnect between the party and the people and BJP’s success in taking advantage of scams like 2G spectrum and price rise.
He also said an environment was created by CAG reports and the anti-corruption movement led by Anna Hazare that made people believe that it was Congress which was the “centre of all the wrong” that was happening.
Senior party leader Subhash Chopra, who had led a delegation to party president Sonia Gandhi last year opposing split in the MCD, said the timing of the trifurcation was “totally wrong” which might have cost the party.
Rattled by the defeat, a number of Congress leaders also attributed the results to failure of the party to communicate to the people about advantage of splitting the corporation.
“The trifurcation came just ahead of the elections. We could not communicate the advantage of the split to people of the city. I feel the trifurcation should have come much earlier or after the polls,” said Mr Chopra.
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