Kiran Bedi is BJP's CM candidate

NEW DELHI: Putting all speculation to rest and stamping out any threat of dissent in the party, BJP chief Amit Shah at a late-night press conference on Monday named former IPS officer Kiran Bedi as the party's chief ministerial candidate. Her dramatic induction four days back and elevation to the leadership role has given the state BJP a credible and attractive face though it may have left the veterans in the party feeling sidelined and disappointed. Ironically, the battlelines are drawn between two leaders of the India Against Corruption movement - Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The former police officer-turned-activist, a leading light of the Anna Hazare movement and a colleague of Kejriwal, has become a saffron mascot now, and Shah said the Delhi BJP was united under her leadership. But she won't be taking on Kejriwal directly and will contest from the relatively safe seat of Krishna Nagar constituency, a pocketborough of science and technology minister Harsh Vardhan for nearly 15 years. Vardhan was the party's CM candidate last time. TOI