NEW DELHI: Former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit was cremated with full state honours at Nigambodh Ghat on Sunday, with several dignitaries attending the last rites and hundreds of mourners braving heavy rain to bid adieu to the Congress veteran.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were among those present at the funeral.
Earlier, BJP stalwart L K Advani, former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah were among those who visited Dikshit’s Nizamuddin East residence to pay their last respects.
The mortal remains were then taken to the Congress headquarters on Akbar Road, where political leaders, including former PM Manmohan Singh, chief ministers Kamal Nath and Ashok Gehlot, and Ahmed Patel paid their tributes.
Dikshit, 81, had died on Saturday due to cardiac arrest. Later the body was taken to the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee office, where a large number of party supporters had gathered to pay their homage.
Dikshit will be remembered as the face of Delhi who worked tirelessly during her 15-year stint as chief minister to improve the city’s infrastructure, public transport and look.
Her political journey was accidental. It began by winning the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh in 1984, and then becoming a minister in the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet. There was no going back after that as she continued the legacy of her father-in-law, Uma Shankar Dikshit, a seasoned politician from UP.
The launch of the Delhi chapter of her political journey was not smooth. Her party fielded her against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Lal Bihari Tiwari for the East Delhi seat in the 1998 parliamentary elections and she lost. But eight months later, Dikshit won the Delhi Assembly election for the party and became the chief minister.
She ruled Delhi with such zeal that it ensured her party returned to power for two more terms.