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When Sheila Dikshit took ruffians to police station at night in Kanpur
An event during a night of early 80s is still remembered for Dikshit’s courage when she grabbed two ruffians for passing lewd remarks at her near Ghantaghar in Kanpur at 1.30am and handed them over to the police.
Former Delhi chief minister and senior Congress leader Sheila Dikshit, who died on Saturday, had a deep connection with Unnao and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh. Unnao is her in-law’s home city while Kannauj is the place from where she started her political journey in 1984.
Dikshit was married to Vinod Dikshit, the son of Congress stalwart and former UP governor Uma Shankar Diskhit who was from Unnao. She contested Lok sabha election from Kannauj in 1984, defeating Chhote Singh Yadav by margin of 61,000 votes.
After serving in Rajiv Gandhi cabinet she contested from her ‘sasural’ Unnao in 1996, but she came fifth with securing mere 11,000 votes.
Sheila Dikshit had a special bond with Kanpur as well.
An event during a night of early 80s is still remembered for Dikshit’s courage when she grabbed two ruffians for passing lewd remarks at her near Ghantaghar in Kanpur at 1.30am and handed them over to the police.
Her long time ally Rajesh Shrivastava, 89, who now lives in the city’s Geeta Nagar locality recalls that Diskhit had come down all the way from Lucknow driving the car to drop her husband, Vinod Dikshit, an IAS officer then, at Kanpur Central railway station.
“Her husband had to reach Aligarh and needed to take the train from Kanpur that night,” said Shrivastava.
On the way back she missed the road and reached Ghantaghar side of railway station. “It was around 1.30 am. She asked some youths standing on the road for directions. But , instead of guiding her, they passed lewd comments at her. Dikshit boldly confronted and managed to overpower two of them. She took them to the Collectorgunj police station and handed them over to the police. She was quite strong willed,” he said.
“That day her husband had missed the train at Lucknow railway station. Next train was available from Kanpur only. He asked her wife to drop him to Kanpur. She drove him to Kanpur in the night. After completing the formalities at the police station she reached Lucknow at 6 am,” said Shrivastava who stayed in touch with her through the years.
Dikshit visited Kanpur every time she was invited. “Her sister used to live in Double Puliya Kakadeo and she often used to visit her. Her last visit to Kanpur was in 2017 when she came to launch a Congress campaign ‘27 saal-UP behaal’,” he said.
