Chacko downplays Sheila Dikshit's comments on Maken

Senior Congress leader P C Chacko on Thursday downplayed fellow leader Sheila Dikshit's remarks regarding the party's chief ministerial candidate for the recently held Delhi assembly elections, Ajay Maken, adding that the statements made were the Delhi chief minister's personal views and not the opinion of the grand old party.

Dikshit had earlier said that Maken's 'style' did not inspire confidence among the voters in the national capital.

"That is her personal opinion and I do not want to comment on the opinion expressed by any one leader. In fact, Sheila Dikshit, including all the people who were connected with Delhi Congress politics and Delhi's election, should do a soul searching instead of blaming each other... This is the time to think how we can rejuvenate the party from the situation where it has reached," Chacko told ANI here.

"If the party has reached a situation which is not at all good for the party, every one of us has responsibility on that, including Sheila Dikshit," he added.

Chacko further stated that the results in the elections were beyond the control of any one leader.

"I do not think that if she had hit the campaign also things would have been different. I do not think so. In my political experience I can say that this was a situation which was beyond the control of any one single leader. This was a situation which happened in Delhi which very rarely happens in politics," he said.

The Congress had been in power in the national capital for 15 years up to 2013 and had been trying to rebuild its lost ground in Delhi, but failed to even open its account in the Delhi polls.

The BJP, which was relying heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity and had brought in former IPS officer Kiran Bedi as its chief ministerial candidate to counter Kejriwal, also managed to secure just three seats.