Stalwarts in battle for Delhi

Will it be third-time lucky for Sheila Dikshit or will VK Malhotra steal the thunder?

DNA SURVEY

NEW DELHI: It's not just a battle between two political parties in Delhi this November but also an acid test for two senior politicians in the assembly polls.

If the Congress under Sheila Dikshit is able to win the confidence of voters for a third consecutive time, the Delhi chief minister would make history as in the past three decades the Congress has not been able to hold ground in any state for such a long span of time.

Names of candidates for Delhi's 70 assembly seats have however not been finalised by either the ruling Congress or the opposition Bharatiya Janta Party which is again being headed by VK Malhotra, a politician senior to even LK Advani in the party.

Advantage Dikshit
Riding high on the achievements of the past 10 years, the Sheila Dikshit government has decided to highlight the Delhi Metro rail project and the low-floored Delhi Transport Corporation buses that have changed the face of commuting in the capital in the past one decade. The killer Bluelines would soon be history as corporate houses have been invited to manage public buses in the capital.

With the single agenda of making Delhi a world city by the 2010 Commonwealth Games, several power and housing projects have taken off in the past couple years.
The Dikshit government has also taken steps to improve the conditions of girl child in the national capital and increased monthly pension given to widows and elderly residents.

Dikshit's politically correct gestures would certainly yield good results for the Congress in Delhi where it has the best chances of coming back to power in comparison to the other states.

With the changing face of Delhi and more youth voters coming to the fore, the present chief minister has a good chance of making it back to the top post. The cracks within the Delhi Congress have also closed for the time being and people who were once bitterly opposed to Dikshit are ready to join hands again.

Weak links
The only two issues, apart from price rise, that could hit the ruling party are the anti-incumbency factor and the demolition drive in Delhi in the past two years that had affected many businesses in the capital.

Although the Congress has taken steps in the past few months to revoke the drive and allow a part of the closed shops to reopen, the business community in Delhi not too happy with the Dikshit government.

Factions elsewhere
But even as Congressmen close ranks to prepare for the 'big battle', factions have cropped up in the BJP, which till now was confident of making it to the assembly elections without much difficulty.

Apart from a lacklustre campaign, the party leadership in the state is also unhappy with the selection of Malhotra as the chief ministerial candidate. Senior leaders like BJP state president Harsh Vardhan and Vijay Goel were keen to get the slot but Malhotra was para-dropped by the party high command as he has the backing of Advani.

In fact, Malhotra's candidature was largely seen as a compromise formula to end the feud between Goel and Vardhan. But the move has not helped stem the rift. The first signs of the cracks within the party surfaced on the day of the announcement of Malhotra's name itself, with Goel walking out of the press conference. Though Vardhan pledged support to Malhotra, party insiders revealed that the BJP state president has been sulking ever since.

Senior state BJP leaders feel the only direct association of Malhotra with Delhi was between 1967-1972, when he was the chief executive councillor. He has been mainly away from Delhi politics as he was part of the BJP central leadership.

Lacks punch
Displeased by the decision, several in the party feel Malhotra, at 77, is too old for the post and lacked steam to take advantage of the anti-incumbency wave against the Congress.

They say Malhotra lacks the charm to take control of the election campaign.
BJP workers are of the opinion that Malhotra's campaign since the announcement of his candidature almost a month back hasn't generated any momentum and the campaign is yet to take off.

The highlights of Malhotra's campaign have been electricity, water and the condition of public transport in Delhi, but the Congress has already started the process of change in these spheres with swanky low-floored DTC buses, signing agreements with neighbouring states on power-sharing and development of power plants which would start functioning before the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Perhaps Malhotra is betting on the anti-incumbency factor to work on its own and the possible dent in the Congress' vote bank by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which made significant political in-roads in the national capital in the 2007 municipal elections with a 9% vote share.

The BJP also joined hands with the Akalis in Delhi but the problem of seat sharing has started between the two sides. The Akalis have asked the BJP to allow them to fight in more than four seats in west Delhi but the BJP is not prepared to take chances and allow them to take the lead in representing the Punjabi-dominated west Delhi areas.
v_gyan@dnaindia.net