Anti-politician act helped solve impasse, says Kiran Bedi

By IANS,

New Delhi : Defending her much-talked about speech at the Ramlila grounds where she called politicians “double-faced”, former Indian Police Service officer Kiran Bedi Sunday claimed her act got the attention of opposition and helped resolve the issue.


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Talking to a NDTV news channel, Bedi said her act Friday attracted the attention of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L. K. Advani who called her that evening and this led to a breakthrough in the impasse.

“When I wrote only a miracle could change this, that miracle came through Mr. Advani, through the crowd that booed at some MPs, who had come to meet Anna, leaving. I think that booing went up to Mr. Advani,” Bedi said.

“In the evening, I got a call from Mr Advani.. I said sir, we have been left alone, even you have betrayed us… You did not raise our voice in the parliament… who will listen to us, and he said ‘beti’, it will happen in parliament tomorrow,” Bedi said.

“Next day in parliament, Mr. Advani opened his statement by saying Mr. Hazare’s health is our top priority, in the evening when I saw Mr. Advani in the Prime Minister’s Office, I knew the miracle was happening.”

“If that little act of mine has brought about this resolve in Mr Advani to turn the things around, I think it was worth it, though it was against my grain, that is not my training but that was an outcry of people to say where do we go,” she said.

Bedi however clarified that she didn’t mean to hurt anybody. “I was becoming one voice of those thousands of people. I have greatest respect for the parliament.”

At the Ramlila grounds Friday, Bedi pulled a scarf from the neck of a young activist on stage, wrapped it over her head like a veil and proceeded to mock MPs and their “double-faced utterances”.

“This is how they behave,” she said pulling the scarf on and off her face, “one thing with a mask and another without a mask”.

She also reiterated that politicians were double-faced.

“It was double-faced throughout, I went to all the meetings,” she said, adding that the government representatives said something in the first meeting and something else in the second meeting.

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