She talked of bringing her administrative experience of 40 years to usher in a corruption-free government while talking to the media after her formal induction in the party. She had decided to join the BJP long ago when she expressed desire to serve the country in the Narendra Modi government, but the party kept it on hold for her entry with a bang for a master stroke in the assembly elections.
Even in her first remarks after joining the BJP, she gave all credit to Prime Minister Modi for inspiring him to enter politics and praised him to the hilt for an inspirational leadership he provided to the nation.
BJP president Amit Shah, who welcomed her into the party’s fold after driving her to the BJP headquarters here in his car, won’t say if she is the party’s chief ministerial candidate even while confirming that she is going to contest the Assembly elections and it is for the party’s central parliamentary board to decide the chief minister after the polls.
He won’t answer if she is going to be the BJP candidate on the New Delhi seat to take on AAP leader and former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, with whom she once brushed shoulders as part of Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption (IAC) movement until November 2012 when they fell out on his formation of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). She has been a bitter critic of Kejriwal since then.
“Yet to decide the seat on which she would contest. No decision yet on her constituency,” Shah said and dismissed the question if she were the apt person to be the chief minister, saying every party worker is capable to be the CM’s post and “better wait for naya samachar (new news).
His hint was at the former AAP leader Shazia Imli joining the BJP and taking on Kejriwal in his New Delhi constituency that he won last time in 2013, beating then chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who was a winner three times, by a huge margin. Imli has, however, tweeted: “I am not contesting from New Delhi or elsewhere.”
The suspense remains as to whom the BJP fields from New Delhi as also in circulation is the name of actor-turned former MP Jaya Prada for the seat as she may join the BJP along with her political Guru and former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh. “Kejriwal’s poster war is in full swing, but we still do not know whether it is going to be Kiran Bedi, Jayaji or Imli,” a BJP activist rued. The Congress is planning to field former Delhi Minister Kiran Walia against Kejriwal, though she had been contesting all these elections from south Delhi and its chief campaigner Ajay Maken shying away from his erstwhile seat as New Delhi was to better go to Sadar Bazar in the walled city.
Though Narendra Modi was not present at the party headquarters to welcome her, Kiran Bedi showered all praise on him for being inspirational to her and claimed crores like her have been moved by the kind of leadership he has provided for an unprecedented revival of the country. She said she was coming to the BJP with a dedication to the country that she imbibed when she put on the police uniform.
