Dikshit initially was on a weak wicket. There were as many as 34 local Congressmen who had applied for the Gole Market constituency ticket that Dikshit eventually got. Predictably, there were murmurs that were getting louder by the day within the rank and file about her being an `outsider'.

She today managed to bring all of 34 of them on a common platform and made each of them, including rebels-come-home Ramesh Sabharwal and Himanshu Pandey, address Gole Market party workers at the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee's office.

Dikshit appears to have set things right for herself. With eight days to go for polling day, her close aides vouch she has a `winning' strategy to beat BJP's Kirti Azad and eight others, including CPI's veteran leader M.M. Gope.

More importantly, she has brought in her loyalists from other states to personally observe polling booths on the day of reckoning and ensure that no one would be able to sabotage her chances.

Unlike Kirti Azad, Dikshit does not think she needs star campaigners to visit her constituency. But she has also ensured that Azad, who has promised to bring Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar and Ajay Jadeja for his campaign, may not be able to do so. The party's Ex-Army Officers' Association cell wrote to Tendulkar, requesting him not to campaign for Azad because ``your fans cut across all political lines''.

Kapil Dev was approached by both Dikshit and Azad to lend a hand to their respective campaigns. So Kapil, who would probably have not minded campaigning for his 1983 World Cup teammate and friend, has kept out of both camps. ``As the pressure is from both sides, I do not think the cricket stars will come forward to campaign for Azad,'' Captain Praveen Davar, secretary of Ex-Army Officer's Association and one of Dikshit's campaigners, said.

Dikshit supporters say she has a well thought out gameplan to upset Azad, who is still popular for what he has done during his five-year stint as MLA in the constituency.

First, 43 per cent of 1.09 lakh voters here belong to the ``fixed income group'' and her calculation is that they are pretty upset with price rise, especially of vegetables. Thus, she hired professionals from one Delhi Drama Society to play nukkad (streetcorner) drama in each locality to target the fixed-income voters.

Second, she is targeting voters who stay in 32 jhuggi-jhopri clusters in this constituency. Some special nukkad plays reflecting their conditions have also been planned.

Third, she has made it a point to visit each of the 100 mosques situated in this constituency to win over a sizeable Muslim voters.

Fourth, she believes that the presence of electronic voting would prevent large-scale rigging in her constituency. Only bogus votes by impersonation can be polled, but booth-capturing is ruled out where the electronic machines have been introduced.

Last, Dikshit has local activists manning 114 booths on the D-day but has also brought in Congressmen from Maharashtra and Haryana to take ``practical'' charge of the polling booths. For instance, H. Shukla from Maharashtra is in charge of 47 booths, including the one where Sonia Gandhi and her family will cast votes. Armed with a computer at 73 South Avenue, he records details on the number of voters manually checked by Congress field.