A crusader against corruption, Bedi has her task cut out in Puducherry
NEW DELHI: Kiran Bedi’s appointment as the Lt Governor of Puducherry has come just three days after the Congress-DMK alliance won 17 seats in the 30-member State Assembly. The AIADMK won four and the BJP could not open its account. Thanking the Narendra Modi government for giving her the opportunity, Bedi said: “I don’t consider it as power; to me it’s a resource to deliver. My priority will be bottom-up approach, I will like to meet the constable, the teacher in a school to make them feel that he or she is most important.”
“I look forward to giving every bit of myself to the responsibility. I am here to give my best every day, each day. With integrity, fairness and no assurances in false, we are here to carry forward the current priority of development in all areas,” she said.
Bedi, 67, who joined civil services in 1972, had sought voluntary retirement from the service in 2007 while she was posted as Director General, Bureau of Police Research and Development. She also headed Delhi’s Tihar Jail and is known for pushing reforms and welfare of inmates. She won a UN medal for exemplary services.
A Ramon Magsaysay awardee for police reforms, Bedi has had her share of reverses. After she was projected as the BJP’s CM candidate against Kejriwal in 2015, the party suffered its worst drubbing in Delhi with the AAP sweep limiting the BJP to just three seats in a 70-member House.
Bedi was part of the Union Territory cadre in the IPS and was posted at Mizoram, Goa, Delhi, Chandigarh, but missed out Andaman and Puducherry. “It is a wonderful opportunity as it’s a part of my own cadre,” she said. She is also a law graduate from Delhi University, which she got in 1988 and a PhD from IIT Delhi’s Department of Social Sciences in 1993.
A tough, no nonsense cop, she got the moniker “Crane Bedi” during her stint with Delhi Traffic Police for ordering the towing away of all vehicles illegally parked on the roads. It has been claimed that she got the car of the then PM Indira Gandhi towed away for wrong parking, but it is a myth.
She was vocal in her criticism of the thrashing of Shaktiman, a police horse, allegedly by a party lawmaker and demanded that The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 be revisited as the punishment built into it was paltry. “If our assemblies and parliament do not legislate to keep up with the times, who does one complain to? Shaktiman’s case also shames the legislatures to correct the law.”
Bedi’s appointment comes at a time when charges of corruption have been flying around in Puducherry. Will she be able to clean it up and make it a model UT? Therein lies the challenge.
News Source: Express News Service