At a glance: Sheila Dikshit, the charismatic Delhi CM

New Delhi: In 1998, Congress president Sonia Gandhi took a big gamble, when she virtually parachuted Sheila Dikshit from the humdrum of dusty UP politics to the vortex of Delhi politics. Politics in Delhi Congress those days was centred around the likes of Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, Jaiprakash Agrawal, and Sonia Gandhi was literally fed up of internal bickerings. Her advisers had told her that the demography in Delhi was changing. The days of Punjabi 'refugee' leaders like Madanlal Khurana and Kidarnath Sahni were almost over, and people from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh had become the dominating vote banks. In came, Sheila from dusty Kannauj, her old constituency, to Delhi, and she has remained here ever since. Cashing in on widespread public anger over onion prices shooting up to Rs 18 a kg those days, with people lining up in front of trucks to buy onion at controlled price, Sheila and her band of supporters galvanized the Delhi Congress apparatus and threw out BJP from power for 15 long years. In the process, she effectively demolished the power of leaders who were strutting about with their Jat vote banks (men like Sajjan Kumar and Sahib Singh Verma), and bania vote banks (men like Jaiprakash Agrawal and Vijay Goel).The three times Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit took the Congress party to new heights in the capital with her glorious victory for three consecutive times.Born in Kapurthala, she is a convent educated with her masters from Miranda house, Delhi University. Dikhsit since a very young kept herself involved in Youth Empowerment. She played a vital role in establishing two most successful hostels for working women in Delhi in 1970s. She very efficiently represented the nation at the United Nations Commission on Status of Women for five consecutive years. Representing the Kannauj constituency she also served as a member of the Estimates Committee of Lok Sabha. During 1986-89 she became the Union Minister and was selected for the 2008 World Mayor Award. For radical reforms and developments in the state of Delhi she was awarded the Best Chief Minister of India award by the Journalist Association of India in 2008.She has been recognized for her rigorous efforts towards the betterment of the status of women in India. In 1990, Dikshit went to jail after she with her colleagues led a movement to protest against the barbarities against women. She also became the Secretary of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust. Married to former IAS officer Late Vinod Dikshit, Sheila has two children, son Sandeep and daughter Latika. Sheila was married into the family of freedom fighter and former Governor of Bengal Uma Shankar Dikshit. Her son Sandeep Dikshit represents East Delhi in Lok Sabha.Let's have a look at some photographs from Sheila's glorified journey as a chief minister: