JOIN US'No longer involved with BJP'
Five months after being declared the Bharatiya Janata Party’s chief ministerial candidate in Delhi, Kiran Bedi says she is not involved in party activities anymore.
“I am not in party politics anymore,” she told Deccan Herald when asked about her current affiliation with the BJP.
“No...Never.....certain situations do not return,” she had said earlier in the day in reply to a supporter’s comment on Twitter. Her supporter had tweeted: “We common man with u agli baar,kiran bedi sarkar (a play on the BJP’s poll slogan – Ab ki baar Modi sarkaar).”
When Deccan Herald reached her for comment, the former IPS officer said she will not contest elections again and would rather invest herself in social service.
“I am not in political service anymore. I was then responding to a situation. I don’t believe in making false promises for professional goals,” she said.
Bedi lost the February 2014 elections from Krishna Nagar seat to Aam Aadmi Party’s S K Bagga, and the BJP got only three seats out of 70. Since then, she has been missing from action.
She gave the BJP’s 35th foundation day on April 6 a miss. Later, she told a newspaper that she was unaware about the celebrations.
On Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, she said, “We were fighting against a lobby or state power. It was a fight for delivering governance. But now it is a fight against politics that ignites, and not that douses fire,”
She said Kejriwal is engaged in politics, which she defined as “dirty and destructive”.
On her current rapport with former colleague from India Against Corruption, Bedi insisted that it was him who parted ways. “He turned into a politician, I didn’t. It was not my intention to be in politics,” she said.
She alleged that the “Kejriwal’s reign” in Delhi after the AAP’s landslide victory lacked commitment for governance.
“There is an army of one lakh government employees. He needs to work with them,” she said.
On certificate row
On Jitender Singh Tomar’s fake certificate row, which led to his resignation as Law Minister on Tuesday, the former police officer said, “If there is a complaint, one should act against it.”
“I’m will always remain a cop. Uniform rises above everything. In my UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) application form I had written ‘Humanity’ in the column for religion,” she said.
On whether she still conforms to the idea of BJP’s nationalist ideology, she said, “I have always believed in India First.”