December 4: Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit speaks to reporters
As Delhi votes today, Sheila Dikshit, who is looking for a fourth straight term for her Congress party, said to NDTV, "I am not nervous at all. You people are calling it anti-incumbency. I say it's pro-incumbency." (
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Mrs Dikshit, who is 75, also told NDTV that she slept well at night. "I'm too grown up to be nervous about an election," she joked.
Today's election will test Mrs Dikshit and her party, which have governed the capital since 1998 and are contending now with voter fatigue, inflation and anger over crimes against women and corruption. (
Read: Sheila Dikshit looks for fourth term in Delhi)
The election also marks the first electoral test of Arvind Kejriwal and his nine-month-old Aam Aadmi Party, which has positioned itself as the antidote to what it describes as the endemically corrupt old-timers in the Congress and the main opposition party, the BJP.
When asked about whether she sees Mr Kejriwal as a threat, Mrs Dikshit was visibly disturbed. "AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) is talked about because the gentleman and the party have a way of projecting themselves....Is it a party? Can you call it a party and compare it to the BJP and the Congress?"
In an audacious move, Mr Kejriwal, a former tax inspector, has chosen to run for office from Mrs Dikshit's constituency of New Delhi - she has won it three times in a row.
Mr Kejriwal cast his vote at a polling station in central Delhi early on Wednesday accompanied by about 100 supporters wearing white Gandhi caps which, along with a broom, has become his party's trademark. (
Read: Will be people's victory, not mine, says Arvind Kejriwal)
He formed the Aam Aadmi Party less than a year ago after a split from his one-time partner Anna Hazare, the elderly activist with whom he launched a nationwide protest movement in 2011 demanding a new anti-corruption law.