New Delhi: The BJP ranks keep swelling with those who have an Anna Hazare connection. After the retired IPS officer turned social activist Kiran Bedi joined by the party, on Friday it was the turn of another face of the Aam Aadmi Party, Shazia Ilmi, to join the ruling party. She had a pre-induction meeting with national president Amit Shah, and then she formally joined the party in the presence of the Delhi unit chief Satish Upadhyay.
Though there has been a lot of speculation about Ilmi taking on her former colleague Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi constituency for the next month’s election, she maintained that her decision to join the party has been unconditional and with no expectations.
But her decision to join the BJP has attracted flak from the Congress which lost no time in reminding her of the views she had expressed some time ago. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi recalled that she had said: “No Indian women or man who respects women should vote either for the Congress or the BJP. They have a vulgar anti women mentality and must be boycotted.”
Singhvi also reminded Kiran Bedi of her views about the then Gujarat chief minister, when she had said: ‘‘One day NaMo will need to respond with clarity on riots massacre despite courts clearing him so far.” The Congress spokesperson also emphasized that on Thursday Bedi had observed that she had joined the BJP due to Modi’s inspirational leadership.
With the BJP inducting two prominent faces from the AAP camp, its strategy to undercut this party ahead of the February elections has become obvious, and though the contest is essentially between these two parties that had won the bulk of the seats between them, the Congress too is positioning itself as a player in the reckoning.
“We are the only tried and tested party that has provided a stable government to Delhi for the past 15 years. Now we have a dynamic leader with a clean image and competent track record,” he added with reference to the fact that former union minister Ajay Maken now heads the party’s campaign.
IANS ADDS: Acutely aware of the flak her decision was getting, Ilmi said she had joined the BJP “for the rest of my life.” “There is indeed a new political discourse in the country, and we must all be a part of it,” the journalist-turned-politician told the media. She admitted she had had differences with the BJP and the Congress in the past. “But in the last six months I have realized that the prime minister is doing a good job. The way he invoked Mahatma Gandhi’s name for the Swacch Bharat (Clean India) campaign is very impressive,” she said.
Ilmi had contested – and narrowly lost – the December 2013 assembly elections on AAP ticket.
Once close to Kejriwal, Ilmi was reportedly unhappy that the AAP fielded her in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh where she finished a distant fifth.
“One day, Narendra Modi will have to respond with clarity on riot massacre,” Kiran Bedi Tweet on March 16, 2013
