The tweets from social activist Kiran Bedi praising the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi comes as a welcome endorsement for the party. After all it's not often that an activist making her personal voting preference public sparks this kind of public response and spices up an already surcharged political atmosphere.
A series of tweets announcing that she favoured BJP and Narendra Modi last evening raised the obvious question -- will Kiran Bedi join the BJP and contest elections on a party ticket? Presently there is nothing to confirm that she will. However, senior leaders from the BJP told Firstpost that if the former police officer were to decide on joining the party she would be given a warm welcome.
The welcome would include an open offer to contest the elections from any of the seven Delhi seats, but they would prefer her to contest from Chandini Chowk or New Delhi. Some senior BJP leaders are in touch with her on the matter.
Though in public debates and tweets she has taken an assertive pro-Modi position, no BJP leader could confirm the possibility of coming into the party fold.
"I enjoy my voice as an independent," Bedi said, adding that she was not interested in joining any political party.
The activist has said she doesn't want to enter politics. Reuters
During the parliamentary elections in 2009, Bedi was offered a ticket by the BJP to contest from one of the two seats, but she had declined, preferring to be an activist than become a politician, a source in the party said. Following her tweet backing Modi, Subramanian Swamy openly invited her to join the party, saying, "We should invite Kiran Bedi and Gen VK Singh to join BJP".
The issue evoked a response from Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh who said, "I would like to congratulate Kiran Bediji, and also add that it is not at all surprising that she was invited, but I think she should remove inclusive from her tweet if she supports Modi."
Bedi's tweet acquires significance since it came after the findings of a Times of Indiasurvey were made public, which suggested that AAP will dent the BJP vote share in urban areas and could play spoiler to Modi's prospects. The activist is the first prominent personality to clearly voice her opinion in favour of the BJP since the report was published.
In one of her tweets she had also questioned the kind of leading questions that was put forward in the Times Of India survey. Though BJP leaders did not denounce the survey, some of them raised questions on the sample size and some apparent contradictions in that survey and the manner in which the questions were framed.
From the BJP's perspective, Bedi was just as good a candidate for 2009 elections, but things are even more in her favour in 2014. Following the Anna Hazare Lokpal movement in the summer of 2011, Bedi became the other most recognisable faces of that movement and continues to be closely associated with the anti-corruption activist. Her public, and bitter, split with Arvind Kejriwal is another point in her favour and could be an effective voice of opposition, with impeccable credentials, against the rising buzz that surrounds the Aam Admi Party after the Delhi elections.
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