Sheila Dikshit has no intentions of fighting Delhi polls

Former Delhi chief minister and senior Congress leader Sheila Dikshit on Tuesday said that she was not interested in politics in the national capital, which could go to polls later this year. “I am not interested in Delhi politics,” Dikshit told CNN-IBN, adding that she “does not intend to fight elections at all.” [caption id=“attachment_1776415” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit said she is not interested in Delhi politics. PTI[/caption] However, the former Delhi CM also said that the Congress would fight elections well if fresh polls were conducted. “If the election comes, the Congress will fight the elections and fight it well, I am sure.” On Tuesday, Lieutenant-General of Delhi Najeeb Jung got approval from President Pranab Mukherjee to invite the single largest party, in this case the BJP, to form government. On this development, Dikshit said, “I also believe that in a democratic system where there are MLAs representing their constituencies, we need an elected government. But they took long because obviously they couldn’t gather up the required numbers.” Governor Najeeb Jung had sent a report to President Pranab Mukherjee on 5 September seeking permission to call the single largest party to take a shot at power in Delhi, though it is well short of majority in the Assembly. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kerjwal has questioned the decision of the LG to invite the BJP to form the government. “BJP tried to buy MLAs and form government four times. But how can they form the government now without numbers?” he asked, insisting that the BJP is running away from Delhi elections as they are ‘afraid of losing’. In the 2013 December polls in Delhi, Congress had won eight seats in the 70-member Assembly. BJP had won 31 seats but the number of BJP MLAs came down to 28 as three party legislators Harsh Vardhan, Ramesh Bidhuri and Pervesh Verma had resigned from the Assembly after they were elected to Lok Sabha. The Aam Aadmi Party had won 28 seats in its debut Assembly elections and had later formed the government with outside support from Congress’ eight MLAs. Kejriwal resigned as the chief minister on 14 February and ever since then, Delhi has been placed under President’s rule. (With agency inputs)