BJP leader Kiran Bedi appointed as Lt Governor of Puducherry

Puducherry: BJP leader and former IPS officer Kiran Bedi was on May 22 appointed as Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, a post which was under the additional charge of Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Island for nearly two years.

A Rashtrapati Bhawan communique said “the President has been pleased to appoint Ms. Kiran Bedi, to be the Lt. Governor of Puducherry with effect from the date she assumes charges of her office.”

“I look forward to giving every bit of myself to the responsibility. I am there for the benefit of the country. I am here to give my best every day, each day. I am grateful for the government’s decision. They trusted me,” said 66-year-old Kiran Bedi, the country’s first woman IPS officer.

The appointment comes three days after the Congress-DMK alliance won 17 seats in the 30-member state Assembly. AIADMK, which contested the elections on its own, won four seats while BJP could not get even a single seat.

The LG post in the Union territory had been lying vacant after the Narendra Modi Government sacked UPA nominee Virendra Kataria on July 12 barely a year after he had been appointed. Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Island Lt Gen Ajay Singh had been given additional charge of Puducherry.

Kiran Bedi was projected as the chief ministerial candidate for the Delhi Assembly elections but came a cropper.