Kiran Bedi

In the open letter that Kiran Bedi wrote to her fellow citizens last Sunday (soon after Delhi’s AAP government took charge), she should simply have thanked people and wished the victors well. As they say, one should be graceful in defeat and magnanimous in victory.

Instead, it reads like a campaign speech that begins with a biodata of her achievements. She accepts defeat and its responsibility and then adds a rider: ‘In such trying situations one does not meet the challenge alone.

There are several factors which play a vital role. And each one did. I wish to add nothing more.’ She has belatedly realised that electioneering is messy. ‘We need to rework the way we campaign,’ she writes, saying that cities shouldn’t come to halt (they don’t), there shouldn’t be insults traded (yeah, right) and people’s lives should not be disrupted (as if). ‘Also all campaigning must be become lawful, transparent, facts and evidence based, civil, organised, more technology driven, reasonable, unbiased, neutral through different mediums, etc,’ she writes. None of which needs a grand consensus. All she had to do was follow her own advice during her campaign.

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