New Delhi, July 21 -- Veteran Indian politician Sheila Dikshit, New Delhi's longest-serving chief minister, died on Saturday after a prolonged illness. She was 81.

Dikshit died at a hospital in New Delhi, where she had been admitted for treatment for a heart ailment, New Delhi Television channel said.

A veteran leader of the now-opposition Congress party, Dikshit served as chief minister of the capital for three consecutive terms, from 1998 to 2013.

In a tweet on Saturday, the Congress party called her a "lifelong congresswoman" who "transformed the face of Delhi."

Dikshit was elected as a member of India's Parliament in 1984, representing a seat in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. She served as a federal minister from 1986 to 198...