Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh paid homage to former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit at a prayer-meeting organised at the party office on Sunday.
Thousands of Congress workers and leaders from various other parties, cutting across the party line, participated in the prayer-meeting. “The presence of a large number of people was an acknowledgement of her place in the hearts of the people of Delhi, and the void created by Sheila Dikshit’s demise can never be filled,” the party said in a statement.
A brief film was also screened on Sheila Dikshit’s life. Famous Dhrupad singer Padma Shri Wasifuddin Dagar and his team sang devotional songs on the occasion. At the end of the function, Dikshit’s son and former Member of Parliament from East Delhi Sandeep Dikshit, her daughter Latika and sister Rama Dhawan thanked all those present for attending the function.
Dikshit passed away on July 20 last month in the capital city following a cardiac arrest. Dikshit had taken over as the president of the Delhi Congress in January this year. She managed to increase the vote share of the party in the 2019 parliamentary polls. She had unsuccessfully contested the recently conducted Lok Sabha elections against Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Manoj Tiwari from the North East Delhi constituency. Despite her defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, Sheila Dikshit kept fighting to revive the Delhi Congress till the very end.
The three-time Delhi chief minister, Dikshit served as a Delhi Congress unit president during the Lok Sabha elections. She also lost to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal by 25,864 votes in the assembly elections in 2013.
On this occasion, a meeting hall on the ground floor of Rajiv Bhawan was named after Sheila Dikshit. Delhi Congress leaders, including former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, his wife Gurcharan Kaur, Congress working committee members A K Antony, Ajay Maken, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Pramod Tiwari, AICC secretary Kuljit Singh Nagra, Subhash Chopra, Jagdish Tytler, Mahabal Mishra DPCC working presidents Haroon Yusuf, Devender Yadav and Rajesh Lilothia paid homage to Dikshit.
