Sheila Dikshit's Experience To Be Hard-Sold By Congress To Uttar Pradesh

New Delhi: At 78, Sheila Dikshit has been announced by her party as its Chief Ministerial candidate for Uttar Pradesh. "This is a big responsibility," said Ms Dikshit, professing she "is confident of a good show".

A few weeks ago, Ms Dikhsit, who has served three terms as Chief Minister of Delhi, appeared to subscribe to the premise that she is entering a losing battle when she reportedly refused the nomination for Uttar Pradesh.

But in an interview to NDTV last week, she said she would do as the party requested and referenced herself as "a bahu(daughter-in-law) of Uttar Pradesh".  Her husband, senior bureaucrat Vinod Dikhsit, belonged to Uttar Pradesh and Ms Dikshit has in the past served as a parliamentarian from the state.

It should not be assumed that Ms Dikshit will stand for election in Uttar Pradesh, said Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is in charge of Uttar Pradesh. "It's not necessary to content elections to become the Chief Minister," he said, offering Ms Dikshit's "experience and good work" as her main credentials.

The Congress, depleted by electoral losses that began in 2014 with its routing by the BJP, has been dithering over its strategy for Uttar Pradesh, which votes next year. In particular, the scale of the campaigning acceptable to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra remains unknown.  

The 44-year-old's brother Rahul and mother Sonia are the top two bosses of the Congress. In earlier elections, Ms Gandhi Vadra has restricted her rallies to their constituencies, the family strongholds of Raebareli and Amethi.

Prashant Kishor, accorded considerable credit for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's smash victory in 2014, is now working with the Congress. Sources on his team of strategists said he wanted a Brahmin face - a box Ms Dikshit checks through her marriage - for Chief Minister in the hope of winning back the Congress' traditional upper case supporters. Mr Kishor also reportedly believes that Ms Dikshit's experience as the three-time head of the Delhi government  will be easy to sell to neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, which remains under-developed and besieged by misgovernance.

Ms Dikshit was considered an efficient administrator in Delhi. When the Commonwealth Games of 2010 were poised on the cusp of collapse, thanks to the ineptitude of man-in-charge Suresh Kalmadi, she was asked by the central government to undo the mess.  Projects like a special bus-only corridor, built at great cost only to result in daily traffic jams, stained her final years in office.

In 2013, she was defeated by political novice Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party. Their emphasis on fighting corruption and ridding Delhi of the sort of VIP culture associated with the Congress helped them collate a huge victory.