(Above) Protesters hurl stones at policemen in Delhi on Wednesday and (below) a man being dragged by the police after his arrest at a demonstration against the sealing drive. (AP/PTI)

New Delhi, Sept. 20: The deaths in police firing today stunned the Congress and left it groping for a reaction as the BJP smelt an opportunity for a comeback after eight years in the Opposition.

The knives were out for chief minister Sheila Dikshit whose second innings has been marred by problems from within and outside the party.

Congress sources said Dikshit would have a “lot to account for” the “omissions and commissions” of the last three years at the conclave of party chief ministers on September 23-24 in Nainital.

Union urban development minister S. Jaipal Reddy held an hour-long meeting with Dikshit and his deputy Ajay Maken at the Congress headquarters around 6 pm. Sealing of commercial establishments is within the purview of his ministry.

After the meeting, Reddy said the government could consider convening a special session of Parliament to amend the Constitution to get around the Supreme Court’s order.

In July 2005, the court had directed — on a PIL — that shops and commercial establishments in residential areas must go because they violated the Master Plan, 2021.

Reddy appeared to suggest that the government hoped to do a Shah Bano and circumvent a judicial ruling, which went against its political objectives, through an act of Parliament.

Although a Congress official said such a move would have the rival BJP’s support, sources said it had been possible for Rajiv Gandhi to take on the court in 1987 because he had a brute mandate in Parliament.

A minority status may not give the Congress the same “confidence and leeway”, they said, dismissing Reddy’s response as a “knee-jerk one”.

Congress general secretary in charge of Delhi Ashok Gehlot conceded the party had a “serious problem” on hand. “We have to tell people we are complying with the judiciary’s order. But this is not easy because the issue has become politicised and the ruling party is blamed for everything.”

Dikshit’s rivals, owing allegiance to Delhi Congress chief Ram Babu Sharma, blamed her for bringing things to such a pass. They said that when the court first issued its order, she should have taken traders’ lobbies into confidence and worked out a mechanism to get around the ruling or mitigate its impact.

“Instead, her government allowed things to drift,” the sources said.

They said there had been a “complete lack of coordination” between the urban development ministry and the Delhi government as long as Ghulam Nabi Azad was the minister. Once Maken became junior minister, “things started looking up but it was too late”. But Dikshit, they said, was “unresponsive” to Maken’s proposals because she saw him as a “threat” to her position.

Although the BJP’s central leaders have yet to issue a statement, Delhi unit president Harsh Vardhan got cracking when trouble started today. “Our workers will move into the streets and appeal to people to support the cause of the traders,” he said.