Delhi Elections : Kiran Bedi is BJP’s CM candidate

Kiran Bedi

The BJP on Monday declared India’s first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi as its chief ministerial candidate in Delhi and made her in charge of the campaign committee. She will contest from the Krishna Nagar seat.

“The BJP will contest the Delhi elections under the leadership of Mrs Kiran Bedi and she is also the party’s Chief Ministerial candidate,” BJP president Amit Shah declared after the meeting of the Parliamentary Board.He said she will contest from Krishna Nagar which is a “traditional” seat of the BJP. In the last election Harsh Vardhan had won from here. He later contested the Lok Sabha election.

Departing from its practice of not naming a chief ministerial candidate, Ms. Bedi’s name was declared ahead of voting on February 7 to quell dissenting voices in the party and also to counter Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal who is ahead of others in several pre-poll surveys.

“I am very grateful to the leaders and would like to thank the party leadership,” Ms. Bedi said on hearing the news.

He said Ms. Bedi is India’s first woman IPS officer who devoted her life to fighting corruption and crime. She is a MA and has a law degree. After retiring from police job she took to social work and runs two NGOs.She was virtually handpicked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP Chief Amit Shah and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to lead the party to victory in the Delhi Assembly polls.

Till recently Ms. Bedi, 65, was in the rival camp as a member of the erstwhile India Against Corruption and held the stage along with Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal in their fight against corruption.

Born on June 9, 1945, in Amritsar (Punjab), Ms. Bedi joined the police service in 1972 and was an inspiration to lakhs of people as the first woman officer in the IPS.She shot to fame after she ordered, as Traffic Police Chief, the crane-lifting of a wrongly-parked vehicle of the Prime Minister’s Office during Indira Gandhi’s rule which won her the nickname, ‘Crane’ Bedi.

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Source:Thehindu