This Was Sheila Dikshit's Last Instruction To Congress Workers

Sheila Dikshit passed away Saturday afternoon at a private hospital here after suffering a cardiac arrest. She was 81. Dikshit breathed her last at 3.55 pm at Fortis Escorts Heart Institute.

Sheila Dikshit. PTI

NEW DELHI: As the Delhi Congress chief, Sheila Dikshit's last instruction to party workers was to stage a protest outside BJP headquarters if the standoff between party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and the Uttar Pradesh government did not end Saturday, said a former cabinet colleague. Dikshit passed away Saturday afternoon at a private hospital here after suffering a cardiac arrest. She was 81. Dikshit breathed her last at 3.55 pm at Fortis Escorts Heart Institute. On Friday, the Delhi Congress had sent out a message in Dikshit's name, urging party leaders and workers to come for a mass protest at the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg against the detention of the Priyanka Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh. She was missing from the protest, which was, instead, led by Haroon Yusuf, the working president of the Delhi Congress. On Friday evening though, she instructed her party members to again stage a protest the next day if the standoff did not end. "Had the stand-off between the UP government and Priyanka Gandhi not ended today, then the Delhi Congress was to stage a protest outside BJP headquarters. This was Sheila Dikshit's last instruction as the Delhi Pradesh chief on Friday evening," said a teary-eyed Kiran Walia, who was a minister in Dikshit's cabinet. "Events took a different turn as far as Uttar Pradesh was concerned, else we would have protested," she said after paying tributes to the former chief minister at her residence The standoff between Priyanka Gandhi and the UP government ended on Saturday after some of the villagers from Sonbhadra, where 10 people were gunned down over a land dispute, came to the guesthouse in Mirzapur district where the Congress leader was staying . On Friday, she was detained by the Mirzapur administration when she insisted on travelling to the scene of the recent shooting in Sonbhadra. Gandhi was taken to the Chunar guesthouse where she spent Friday night, insisting she will not return to Delhi unless she meets the families of the victims.