All you wanted to know about Sheila Dikshit but didn't know who to ask

She started off as a reluctant politician, and cut her political teeth assisting her father-in-law, a veteran Uttar Pradesh Congress leader Uma Shankar Dikshit, who was  a minster in Indira Gandhi's cabinet.

She was married to Vinod Dikshit, who worked in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).

It was Indira Gandhi who first picked Sheila Dikshit to be part of a UN delegation. In 1984, she became a minister in Rajiv Gandhi's government after entering the Lok Sabha from Uttar Pradesh after her husband's death.

She was later a minister in the Prime Minister's Office before the Congress was ousted in national elections in 1989.

Mrs Dikshit's rapport with Congress president Sonia Gandhi helped her become president of the faction-ridden party in Delhi in May 1998, six months before she led it to victory in assembly elections.

The high price of onions helped Mrs Dikshit dislodge the BJP in 1998. The Congress won an impressive 52 of the 70 seats in Delhi that year. The Dikshit magic continued to work in 2003 and 2008.

Ironically, the high price of onions and other staples this year has been a contributing factor to disenchantment with Mrs Dikshit in Delhi, whose party has come in a poor third.

Born in Punjab's Kapurthala, Mrs Dikshit was credited with numerous people-friendly programmes. During this year's campaign she listed the urban development of Delhi a a major achievement. She was credited for Delhi's growing infrastructure including roads and flyovers, a less polluted city, better public transport system as well as development on the health and educational fronts.

Her son Sandeep Dikshit is a Lok Sabha member from Delhi.

She has often been called an outsider in Delhi, but Mrs Dikshit studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary School in the capital and then at Miranda House college in Delhi University.