Sheila Dikshit was an Indian female politician and the President of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee. She served her duties as a Chief Minister of Delhi. She is known as the longest-serving female CM. She performed her duties for 15 years, starting in the year 1998.
She led the Congress Party to 3 electoral victories in Delhi. Therefore, she is respected as the architect of modern Delhi.
However, Sheila Dikshit lost the 2013 elections of the Delhi Legislative Assembly to the BJP with Aam Aadmi Party. The party created an opposition government with outside support of the INC, with Arvind Kejriwal as the CM.
In 2014, she shortly performed her duties as the Governor of Kerala. She has thereafter announced a CM candidate for the Indian National Congress in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election. However, due to some reasons, she withdrew from her election.
In 2019, she was appointed president of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee and remained in office until her death.
Birth and Early Life
Sheila was born in 1938 in Kapurthala, Punjab, British India. She was the daughter of Sanjay Kapoor, a Punjabi Khatri family. She was born Sheila Kapoor.
She completed her schooling at the Convent of Jesus and Mary School in New Delhi and then graduated with a Master of Arts degree in history from the Miranda House, DU.
Political Career
- In 1984, Sheila Dikshit was handpicked by Rajiv Gandhi and asked to be part of his council of ministers after he held the position of the PM.
- During the era between 1984 and 1989, Sheila represented the Kannauj constituency of Uttar Pradesh.
- Sheila Dikshit served on the Estimates Committee of Lok Sabha as a representative of Parliament.
- She held the position of chairperson of the Implementation Committee for Commemoration of 40 Years of India’s Independence and Jawaharlal Nehru centenary.
- From 1984-to 1989, she represented India at the UN Commission for five years on the Status of Women.
- From 1986-to 1989, she served as a Union Minister.
- In 1990, Sheila Dikshit and her 82 colleagues were imprisoned for 23 days by the state government for the movement against the atrocities being committed against women.
- In 1970, she held the position of chairperson of the Young Women’s Association and built two hostels for working women in Delhi.
- She also held the position of secretary of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust.
- Dikshit was elected in the 1998 parliamentary election but defeated by BJP’s Lal Bihari Tiwari.
Sheila Dikshit: CM Of Delhi
In the year 1999, she became Chief Minister of Delhi, a position she remained in until 2013.
In 1998, she represented the Gole Market assembly constituency. In 2003, she represented the Assembly elections and in 2008, the New Delhi constituency.
Charges and Allegations
In 2009 and 2013, she was interrogated for purported misuse of government funds, but she came out without any charges.
Political Career Downfall
- In 2013, Sheila Dikshit lost the Delhi Legislative Assembly election to Arvind Kejriwal. He founded the Aam Aadmi Party and became the CM.
- In December 2013, she resigned as a CM of Delhi but remained the caretaker CM of Delhi till the new government was sworn in.
- In 2014, she was appointed the governor of Kerala but was forced to resign.
- In 2019, she contested the Lok Sabha Elections as the competitor for Indian National Congress in the North East Delhi Constituency but got second after BJP’s Manoj Tiwari
Personal Life
Sheila Kapoor was married to Vinod Dikshit. He was the son of an independence activist & former West Bengal governor Uma Shankar Dikshit from Unnao. He performed his duties as an officer in the Indian Administrative Service. They have two children, a son, Sandeep Dikshit, and a daughter, Latika Dikshit Syed.
Death
Sheila Dikshit was suffering from cardiac arrhythmia, had multiple cardiac arrests, and due to unstable condition, she was put on ventilator, her condition worsened with time & later died.
