Sheila Dikshit is on Congress' list as election candidate for North-East Delhi

• Three-time chief minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, will contest the national election for Congress from Delhi.
• Dikshit, now 81 years old, lost the assembly election to Aam Aadmi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal in 2013.
• The grand old party has fielded the veteran politician from North East Delhi, against BJP counterpart Manoj Tiwari.

81-year old Sheila Dikshit will stand for the Indian National Congress from Delhi in the Parliamentary elections that are underway. She will take on actor, singer-turned politician from Bihar, Manoj Tiwari of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the North East Delhi constituency.

Manoj Tiwari had won the election from the same constituency in 2014 and he is the state unit president of the BJP, making him Dikshit's direct rival in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Earlier in January 2019, Dikshit was made the chief of Congress' Delhi state unit. Political speculators have pitched her return as a signal for a possible alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), if the need arises.

Dikshit's candidature was declared along with five other names-- Ajay Maken from New Delhi, Arvinder Singh Lovely from East Delhi, JP Agarwal from Chandni Chowk, Rajesh Lilothia from North West Delhi, and Mahabal Mishra from West Delhi.

Dikshit was the chief minister of Delhi for 15 years from 1998 before she lost to AAP led by Arvind Kejriwal in 2013. She was even pitched as the chief minister candidate for the Congress in the Uttar Pradesh assembly election in 2017, before she withdrew from it.

Dikshit's legacy includes a significant upgrade in the national capital's physical infrastructure. Her image was also tainted by the allegations of her family's involvement in kickbacks and corruption around the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Her son, Sandeep Dikshit, was also a former member of Parliament from East Delhi.


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