New Delhi: The Congress’ second successive rout in Delhi, which the party ruled between 1998 and 2013, has highlighted the diminished profile of some of the party’s tallest local leaders, including a former union minister.
These include Krishna Tirath, who served as the women and child development minister in the erstwhile Manmohan Singh-led UPA cabinet. As of Tuesday afternoon, she was in third position from Patel Nagar, with all of 2.8 per cent of the vote. Leading the constituency was Raaj Kumar Anand of the AAP, with the BJP’s Pravesh Ratn in the second position.
Former Delhi education minister Arvinder Singh Lovely was trailing in Gandhi Nagar behind Anil Kumar Bajpai of the BJP and Naveen Chaudhary of the AAP, with just about 20 per cent of the vote.
Former Delhi health and PWD minister A.K. Walia was also in third position from Krishna Nagar behind the AAP’s S.K. Bagga and the BJP’s Anil Goyal.
Haroon Yusuf, who once served as Delhi’s power minister, was again in third position from Ballimaran, behind the AAP’s Imran Hussain and the BJP’s Lata.
Former Delhi transport minister (1998-2001) Parvez Hashmi was trailing in Okhla behind the AAP’s Amanatullah Khan and the BJP’s Braham Singh.
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Lost from former pocket boroughs
For all these leaders, the seats they lost were once considered their pocket boroughs. Lovely contested and won from Gandhi Nagar for the first time in 1998 when he was 30. He was the youngest member of the Delhi assembly back then.
He lost the East Delhi seat (Gandhi Nagar assembly seat falls under it) in the 2019 Lok Sabha election to a newcomer, cricketer Gautam Gambhir, who contested on a BJP ticket.
He was a rising star in late chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s cabinet, holding crucial portfolios like education, transport, revenue, urban development, tourism and culture between 2003 and 2013.
Lovely, Walia and Yusuf’s political fortunes have seen many twists and turns in their over two-decade career. They were part of the Dikshit camp, but subsequently fell out with her amid deep factionalism in the local Congress unit.
Matters came to a head in 2007 when Dikshit loyalists Kiran Walia, Brahm Pal and Veer Singh Dhingan alleged that the dissident camp, which included Lovely, Walia and Yusuf, used the proceeds of an alleged land scam to destabilise her government.
With the bitter factionalism coming out in the open just ahead of the 2008 assembly elections, the party high command had to intervene. The then Congress president Sonia Gandhi told the different factions to fight the opposition rather than fight among themselves.
Dikshit eventually won the election, and Lovely, Walia and Yusuf, who won from their respective constituencies, were accommodated in the cabinet.
Decline of Congress leaders’ political capital
But the political capital of these three leaders, like that of most other Delhi Congress leaders, declined after the party’s miserable performance in the 2013 assembly elections, when Dikshit’s 15-year-old tenure came to an end. The party won eight seats in 2013.
Lovely was made the chief of Delhi Congress in 2013. He was replaced by former Union minister Ajay Maken in 2015. But the party’s slide continued.
Fed up with internal politics in the party, Lovely quit the Congress in 2017 to join the BJP. But his stint was short. Unable to gel in the saffron party, he returned to the Congress fold in 2018.
Walia, 72, also threatened to quit the party in 2017 alleging irregularities in ticket distribution in MCD elections. Congress sources said the party convinced Walia, who was not keen to contest because of his failing health, to fight from Krishna Nagar to add some heft to the 2020 campaign.
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The Grand Old Party Of India Congress Once Had The Quality and Quantity when it Came to Leadership In The Centre and State Wise but Its Last Hey Day was Under Late Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in The Early/Middle 1990s. Since 1997 the Party Has Become Nothing More Than a Haven For Hangers On and Turn Coats Like Capt Singh From the Punjab..