The big game in town is giving once top cop Kiran Bedi a tough time. The media, which once was in awe have now found her twists and turns a matter of grand humor and is cheerfully questioning her bona fides.
I have known this lady for 40 years and we met in the most awkward manner. I was supposed to fetch her for a party when she was an icon for police toughness and I forgot. Not her toughness but to pick her up. And when she finally did arrive with someone else she said to me with a directness that was quite intimidating that there were very few people who would forget to fetch Bedi.
Even now, on the odd occasion when we meet I get that uh oh feeling, what is she going to do now. Bedi has that unsettling impact on one. But that said, the lady is a friend and so I will defend her right to move to any party in politics she feels is of mutual benefit. Like we do newspapers and you do jobs. If party loyalty was the yardstick for qualification there would be no politicians. Bedi has been upfront and in your face about it. “I did not like Modi. I am disappointed with Kejriwal as I was with Anna Hazare. I admit Modi is on the right track and I am being opportunistic.” Why not? We leave jobs for a better deal. So what’s the difference? Sports people walk out on their teams. Executives call them career moves.
Agreed, she has moved rapidly from the frontlines of one party to another (Team Anna to AAP to BJP) and has tweeted violently against Modi. But politics is all about strange bedfellows and the top cop who became famous when she towed away Indira Gandhi’s vehicle for being docked in a no-parking zone has never hesitated in butting heads with authority. Envied, loathed and not always the favorite of her colleagues she has also been sidelined, sidetracked, cut to size professionally and paid a price for marching to a different drumbeat. Her seniors have sneered, even conspired and often downsized her because she was seen as a person with nuisance value. All too often she has been transferred to soft career postings and fought this unfairness. Not the best of team players in that sense Bedi delivers and one guesses that is what Modi wants: Delivery.
Bedi will win a seat from a safe constituency and if Modi makes her the chief minister of Delhi it won’t just be wrongly parked vehicles that will get docked. If there is a problem, it is that Bedi is also at times a victim of her own hype and often has to be controversial because it is expected of her. That is where it goes wrong and she will have to choose her battles and not get quixotic about it. It would also be advisable if she reined in her ad hoc comments, which often get misinterpreted.
The media guys who are giving her a hard time have left their jobs and changed colors for rank, money, perks and even moonlighted for someone while being paid by another. Whatever your job loyalty is just a lack of option and when the bus comes your way you take it.
Let’s also ask why Modi has agreed to take on a former adversary. No one wants to do that and I wonder why. Surely, he must rankle over the harsh tweets she sent out during last year’s general elections, almost indicting the present Prime Minister. But if they have made their peace why should she hag about in the shadows as a relative non-entity for five years if she is getting the break to do something and do it exceedingly well.
You don’t have to like her and entering popularity contests has never been her ambition but she plays fair and if the ball is in she’ll call it. She will make a damn good chief minister of Delhi. You ask me, go for it girl and when you are chief minister ask me to fetch you for a party…I might still forget.
