By Sidharth Mishra
The grapevine is that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is moving to a house whose balcony faces Humayun’s tomb. More than the archaeological heritage, it was the character of the second Mughal emperor which was a great inspiration for the flat’s late owner Sheila Dikshit.
Gandhi is moving to the first floor three-bedroom apartment now belonging to former MP Sandeep Dikshit, son of late Delhi chief minister. Hedged into a quiet neighbourhood of Nizamuddin East, the three-bedroom apartment shot into prominence when Sheila Dhikshit was nominated as Congress candidate from the East Delhi Lok Sabha seat in 1998.
Later in the year, she was appointed Delhi Congress president and brought the party out from wilderness leading it to power in the national capital winning three consecutive assembly elections in 1998, 2003 and 2008. During this one year period in 1998, this place remained nerve centre of party’s local unit, which also gave an opportunity to the party cadres to differentiate Sheila culturally from the existing leadership, which was anyway on decline.
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