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A day after the Congress suffered a huge set back in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi election, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit told CNN-IBN that she took full responsibility for the defeat.
You were referred to as Delhi's darling...What happened has Delhi's darling been let down by people of Delhi?
No, no, not at all. I take responsibility for it but you said it was a huge setback....It is not a huge set back. Remember it is a municipal election...we have improved our tally since the last election by over nine seats and the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) in its totality has won a few seats.
You don't look at it as a personal referendum, personal setback to you?
My referendum will come for the elections for which I stand, the assembly election -- that's my referendum. This is not my referendum. We lost the municipal elections last time also and we came back with a great majority.
Would it be fair to say you were the face of Congress's campaign in these MCD elections? So if the Congress lost it's your responsibility?
I take responsibility. I'm not shying away from that. But I will not say it is a referendum on me. Well, yes, the responsibility is there. We should introspect, we are introspecting. We should not make the mistakes that we perhaps made and we lost an opportunity, and that's true also, but it's not a referendum on me.
Across Delhi in the last eight years, Delhi's infrastructure has seen a huge facelift. Do you think there is a problem now with the Congress party that while your party may have done some good work the people are unwilling to buy the fact that the Congress, which is full of scams today its even possible for the Cong to do anything.
No, no what are the scams in Congress may I ask? Where has it been proved? A scam becomes a scam...these are imagined to be scams...but where is the proof. The moment the proof comes out whichever scam it may be the guilty are put behind bars or given punishment. But you can't call a scam a scam just because your opposition says it is a scam, therefore the whole world starts believing it.
So Ms Dikshit is still the front runner of 2013 Delhi assembly election?
It's not my being a front runner...my whole party will contest that election and all of us will do it together and leave it for the people of Delhi to decide who's to become the government in 2013.