With just months left for elections in the national capital, Subhash Chopra was appointed as Delhi Congress president while cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad was named as chairman of the campaign committee. Earlier, Azad was touted as a frontrunner for the post of Delhi Congress chief. The post was lying vacant since the death of former state unit chief and former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and the party was functioning with three working presidents. Chopra was Delhi Congress chief when Dikshit was the chief minister of Delhi. As news of Azad being tipped to be the Delhi Congress chief emerged, around 48 leaders — including former MLAs, several MPs and district committee presidents — wrote to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, requesting her not to appoint an “outsider” as the party chief in the capital. Former PCC presidents — Ajay Maken, Subhash Chopra, and Arvinder Singh Lovely — also met AICC Delhi in-charge PC Chacko and opposed any move to appoint Azad as the DPCC president. Their argument was that Azad was an outsider — both to Delhi and to the Congress. Another DPCC president, J P Aggarwal, too had conveyed his opposition to Azad’s appointment.
