Former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has not figured in the campaign materials of the Congress for the coming Delhi Assembly polls.
Sheila Dikshit may have led the Congress to three successive electoral victories in Delhi, but she has not found a place in Congress Party's campaign material for the coming elections.
The Delhi Pradesh Congress today flagged off their campaign vans - modified mini-trucks with large TV screens mounted on it - to showcase through video clips how the Delhi government in the past fifteen years changed the face of the city. But Sheila Dikshit, who was Chief Minister for 15 years on the go didn't figure in any of the clips.
The Congress campaign raths were flagged off by the party's Delhi in-charge PC Chacko in the presence of Arvinder Singh Lovely, the state Congress chief. "You will soon see Sheilaji, as she will be one of our main campaigners in these elections," said Mr Chacko, when asked why Sheila Dikshit wasn't visible in any of the campaign material.
Even Ajay Maken, who's now the party's face for the Delhi polls, didn't find a place in Congress's publicity material. Posters had the pictures of only Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Mr Lovely. And only the Gandhis could be seen in the video.
Is this party strategy or does it simply show the divide within the Congress? Delhi Congress leaders played down reports of any divide, but supporters of Arvinder Singh Lovely had protested the party high command's decision to drop him as a candidate in these elections.
When reporters asked Mr Lovely if he was unhappy at being dropped, he said, "I think you are more unhappy. More importantly, it is the people of Delhi who should be happy. I have been given the responsibility of strengthening the party."
In December 2013, after being voted out of power in Delhi, Sheila Dikshit had blamed party infighting as "one of the reasons why the party fared so poorly." The Congress Party would certainly hope that the election results this time around turn out to be different from the last time.