Senior Congress leader Sheila Dikshit on Thursday said she 'pitied' Ajay Maken, who was the party's chief ministerial candidate for the recently held Delhi assembly polls, adding that his 'style' had not helped the grand old party.
"The signals that went from the Congress party did not inspire confidence. Although we didn't realise that we won't get even a single seat, it was clear from the beginning that we would lose badly. What can I say about Ajay Maken, except that I pity him," Dikshit told ANI.
"He got the leadership and he took it... but quite obviously his style did not help the Congress," she added.
Spelling out the party's weaknesses, the former Delhi chief minister stated that the campaign by the Congress should have been aggressive.
"Ajay Maken was the chairman of the campaign committee; the campaign should have been aggressive. There was lack in our strategy, maybe in totality the Congress party was demoralized," Dikshit said.
"It is now Arvind Kejriwal's duty to fulfil all the 70 promises that he made," she added.
In an unprecedented first for the national capital, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party received 67 seats out of the 70 on offer in the Delhi polls. With this extraordinary mandate, the AAP has become the first non-Congress and non-BJP party to rule the city.
The Congress, which in power in Delhi for 15 years up to 2013 and had been trying to rebuild its lost ground in the city, failed to even open its account in the 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.