Sandeep Dikshit hits out at Ajay Maken for falsely implicating Sheila Dikshit in CWG scam

New Delhi: Former Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit has mounted a stinging attack on DPCC Chief Ajay Maken accusing him of having tried to falsely implicate his mother and then Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in the CWG scam and create an atmosphere to “discredit” her ahead of assembly polls in 2013.

Bringing the strife in Congress’ Delhi unit to the fore, Dikshit, without naming Maken, said in a blog he cannot accept a leadership whose sole objective was to discredit the Congress government in Delhi under Sheila Dikshit, which ultimately led to “destroying” the party itself.

“It is led by a person who has consistently and directly attacked Sheila Dikshit, with his stories, innuendoes and defamatory propaganda.

“He prepared a false synopsis of the CAG’s Commonwealth report, putting in fabricated charges, and sent them to a media house even before the CAG report was published, and that media house broadcast these allegations.

“Of course, the actual report contained none of these charges, but the damage, as planned was done. The same game was played with electricity rates, power meters, and so on,” he said. When contacted, Maken refused to comment.

Dikshit said he wrote the blog to clarify his position after a journalist speculated about his leaving the party for greener pastures.

“As far as the Congress set up at the national level is concerned, I am informed that I am not particularly liked for my rebellious nature and irreverent attitude.

“So where does that leave me? When my own party has put me out to graze, what greener pastures do I look for?” he wrote in news portal ‘Dailyo’.

Asserting that he was a dedicated Congressman, Dikshit said the “political vehicle” of the Congress is the “pivot” around which a large coalition can take shape.

Dikshit, who could not retain his East Delhi Lok Sabha seat in the parlaimentary elections in 2014, said an atmosphere was deliberately created to discredit his mother.

“Even as late as three-four weeks back, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) leader was cajoling journalists to hype up the water tanker issue. He said the Congress was staging a comeback on the strength of the 15 years of its rule in Delhi, which was discredited by the very person who is reaping that benefit now.

“This leadership has prospered by being her counterpoint, and has made abusing her its rallying point,” he said, adding for the current Delhi leadership, she remained a source of “grave concern and fear”.

In the blog, Dikshit also attacked the BJP-led government at the Centre and the AAP dispensation in the city.

Meanwhile, reacting to a question on Dikshit’s blog, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad told journalists that it could be because of “personal rivalry” between two individuals. “I do not give it much credence,” he said.

Azad, the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, is also Congress general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh and Sheila Dikshit has been declared the party’s chief ministerial candidate for the assembly polls there due early next year.

Azad said, “We cannot take responsibility for any person in the family. There can be different views of people in a family.”

He said both Sheila Dikshit and her father-in-law Umashankar Dikshit have been staunch Congress leaders.