Sheila Dikshit: The life and legacy of Delhi's smiling iron lady
Sheila Dikshit, one of the tallest leaders of Congress and Delhi’s longest-serving CM, passed away at 81 after a prolonged illness on Saturday.
Sheila Dikshit, the three-time chief minister of Delhi, passed away on Saturday afternoon after a prolonged illness. She was 81.
At 3:55 pm, when she took her last breath at Escorts Apollo hospital, a glorious chapter of Delhi's rise to 21st century came to an end. Dikshit was the longest-reigning chief minister of Delhi, serving for 15 years from 1998 to 2013 the year that saw the emergence of Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party ending the Congress’s rule.
During her tenure, the national capital’s policy-making reached another level. When she came to helm in 1998 she was seen as an outsider by many. It was the time when Delhi was on the cusp of infrastructural development. The transition, though, was not easy. While she was the CM, Delhi got an infrastructural push with the Metro trains chugging through the most congested neighbourhoods, public transport switching to CNG and new flyovers changing the landscape of the city.
The ride was not smooth though. Controversies around ambitious Commonwealth Games (CWG) of 2010, Shunglu Committee report, failure of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor, rising crimes against women, and Congress infighting were part of her career too. Then there was the December 16, 2012 gangrape that shook the nation’s conscience.
Never the less, it was not so. I too was a woman moreover, a mother and a grandmother. In the last decade or so, the growing confidence of the young girls and women of my city had been my source of delight. It sickened me as a long-time resident of Delhi to see this face of the city What should have been a moment for me to take charge of the situation was reduced to a moment of extreme frustration for the simple reason that law and order in Delhi was the Centre’s responsibility, Dikshit wrote about the incident in her autobiography Citizen Delhi: My Times, My Life’, released in January last year.
Dikshit had come with a little bit of political background but was considered a rookie in Delhi politics. Her father-in-Law, Pandit Uma Shankar Dikshit, was a close associate of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
She managed not just to survive but even started transforming the city in a very short tenure. Her first tenure as CM was marked by the introduction of CNG buses in the Capital, first in any city where the entire public transport was running on clean fuel. Later came more challenging jobs like privatisation of power distribution, a move which was criticised initially but improved the power availability dramatically.
Dikshit will be remembered as the CM who brought more than 70 new flyovers to Delhi, easing out traffic woes. Her last instruction to party workers was to stage a protest outside BJP headquarters against the detention of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi.
SHE LOVED FOOTWEAR & MUSIC
Sheila Dikshit was quite fond of Western music since her youth and would sit near the radio waiting for her favourite songs to be aired and a few years later also developed a fascination for footwear.
Apart from this, reading was also a big passion. Dikshit had mentioned about these in her autobiography Citizen Delhi: My Times, My Life’ published last year.
Father was a member of the Gymkhana Club (of Delhi) and during my teenage years when we lived within walking distance of it, on Dupleix Lane, we would get a fresh lot of six books every weekend to last us until the next weekend. I devoured Enid Blyton’s Famous Five’ stories, and Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers’, she wrote.
Alice in Wonderland’ was one of her favourite books.
WANTED TO QUIT BUT STAYED ON
The winter of 2012, Sheila Dikshit underwent her second angioplasty and her family wanted her to quit politics but then the horrific December 16 gang rape took place and she made up her mind not to run away from the battlefield.
After she complained of fatigue and bouts of breathlessness, doctors confirmed a 90 per cent blockage in her right coronary artery, and she underwent the procedure. My family told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to put health concerns before everything else. My decision to resign was almost certain, Dikshit wrote in her autobiography last year.
But as she prepared to inform the high command of her decision to step down, the country was shaken to the core on December 16, 2012, as the young woman later named Nirbhaya by the media was brutally raped by a gang of men in a moving bus.
LAST RITES IN DELHI TODAY
Former CM Sheila Dikshit’s last rites will take place at Nigam Bodh Ghat on Sunday afternoon.
The Delhi government declared a two-day mourning in the national capital as a mark of respect for her.
Delhi govt has decided to observe a two-day state mourning as a mark of respect in the memory of former Chief Minister and veteran leader Mrs Sheila Dikshit ji. She will be accorded a state funeral, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia tweeted. The CM cancelled his trip to Vaishno Devi temple on Saturday.