Delhi goes to the polls this week and the battle is turning out to be an interesting fight between two individuals who were once on the same side of the fence, fighting against corruption but today bitterly criticizing each other. This is going to be Delhi’s Magsaysay moment as AAP’s CM candidate Arvind Kejriwal and BJP’s CM nominee Kiran Bedi are both winners of the Magsaysay Award, one-time associates in the fight against corruption and formerly in government service.
A little over a year back when the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement slipped into a political role and assumed the avatar of a political party led by Kejriwal, the indomitable Bedi had stayed away terming it a betrayal. Stepping into politics had been anathema to her then. Not only had she not joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), but had refused to have anything to do with the new party that in late 2013 had swept the nation’s imagination and national headlines.
A year later, the former officer of the Indian Police Services has had a change of mind and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, the very party she had once been critical of. Not only did she join the party, but has stepped into the campaign for the party as the chief ministerial candidate, heading a team that she would at one time, going by past statements, have preferred to stay away from.
In the last few months she had been all praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi offering evidence that she could one day join the BJP. When she did join the party it was not a major surprise. But it did surprise some, those who had been following her on twitter and were only too aware of the tweets through which she had once criticized the BJP and Modi. Those tweets had not been deleted from her account and, as she said, that despite those public views of hers, BJP took her in.
Now that Bedi is in the BJP, it will be interesting to see how far she will be able take her no-nonsense attitude and apathy to corruption when in power, should BJP win in Delhi and she take charge as chief minister.
Bedi’s is a name that is known in the country and been associated with honesty and efficiency, whether when she was in the police service or after that in her social service. Her joining the BJP provides the party that much-desired endorsement of honesty and clean politics that the AAP has been claiming in its campaign. BJP, perhaps, has a lot to gain from Bedi’s entry where the campaign against corruption is concerned in Delhi. By projecting her as the chief ministerial candidate, BJP props up a clean face that can match Kejriwal.
Her Goa stint, that many saw as a punishment posting for her having refused to act against a constable who had fined the Prime Minister’s car in Delh, is still clear in the memory of many in the State. In the early 1980s, when traffic in Panjim was low and there was still plenty of place to park, she towed away cars wrongly parked. She became a household name in Goa, and motorists were careful of where they parked their vehicles. Should she be just as strict and stern when sitting in the Delhi chief minister’s office, if the party comes to power, she could rub a lot of people the wrong way.
The campaign in Delhi has reached an interesting phase. BJP has not released a manifesto, and is instead concentrating on asking AAP five questions every day. AAP, with Arvind Kejriwal as its chief ministerial candidate and a rhetoric-laden campaign has again taken over the TV screens. The media is actually falling over itself to get the two of them in front of the camera together. While Kejriwal has challenged Bedi to a debate, the latter has turned it down. On Sunday the top leaders of the BJP and the Congress addressed rallies, bringing the campaign to a feverish pitch. What happens in Delhi this election, in the battle between the two Magsaysay awardees, could have an impact in the rest of the country, which is why all eyes are now on how the National Capital votes.
