Dhawan has been credited with single-handedly managing Dikshit’s campaign in New Delhi constituency, though she herself is rather modest about it. “We were all very closely involved with the campaign,” she told Newsline on Tuesday, a day after the Congress won the third straight Assembly polls. “It was a total team effort.”

But ask Dikshit’s close aides, and they would say Dhawan’s presence in the constituency — the chief minister was taking on BJP’s Saket MLA Vijay Jolly — left Dikshit with enough time to concentrate on broader aspects of the campaign. Throughout the campaign, and indeed after it as well, the presence of Dikshit’s sisters at her residence has been almost taken for granted. From greeting visitors, to organising campaign material and accompanying the CM on various rallies, or just taking a break from it all by watching a movie, both Dhawan and Pam Malhotra were always at Dikshit’s side.

In fact, Malhotra, who lives in Noida, relocated temporarily to the chief minister’s residence a month before D-day. In the New Delhi constituency, the two sisters are a familiar sight. “Most people recognise them now because they have been working in the constituency since 1998,” a close Dikshit aide said. “This is the first election in which Rama-ji has played a more active role. But in terms of helping out, and otherwise meeting people, they have been around for almost 10 years now.”

Same education, same institutions
Like Dikshit, Malhotra and Dhawan also did their schooling from the Convent of Jesus and Mary, and went on to get a degree in History from Miranda House. “It is a little uncanny but the three of us did study exactly the same things,” Dhawan said. Malhotra added that the reason had more to do with lack of choice for subjects back then: “I wanted to study Geography but it was not offered as a choice. So we all studied the same subject — History.”

Dikshit’s political career, so to speak, began when she got married to former Union Minister Uma Shankar Dikshit’s son Vinod, say those close to the chief minister. “She had married into a very political family and Sheila-ji slowly evolved into a very active social worker,” an aide said. “Soon, her sisters also joined in many of her projects.”

Dhawan has been actively involved with the Tibetan refugees’ association and Malhotra said she has always enjoyed campaigning and working in Dikshit’s constituency.

Malhotra, who loathes being called a “housewife”, likes to describe herself as a domestic engineer. “When you work so much around the house, it is almost like engineering,” she said. She also describes herself as a bully: “I love playing Scrabble, so I often bully Sheiladi and Rama into playing with me.”

Married to an ex-naval officer, Malhotra said when Dikshit wants to unwind she heads over to her house. “There are always people waiting to meet her at her own place, so when she wants to relax, she comes over to my place,” Malhotra said. “But we have not hung out like that for months now because of the elections.”

Finally, may be, the time to relax and hang out has come. Again.