Kiran Bedi cuts rice for sanitation, restores after public anger

Puducherry: Courting controversy yet again, Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi on Saturday ordered denial of free rice to all those in the Union Territory whose villagers are not certified as free of garbage and open defecation by end of May. She withdrew the order late evening in the face of all-round criticism slamming her decision as dictatorial and humiliating the poor.

In a Whatsapp message in the night, Ms Bedi said the poor and the needy would be provided their entitlement as per the law made by Central government and rules framed by UT government. Justifying her morning order as “an expression of my serious intent and concern” on addressing the root causes of health hazards in rural areas and compel performance of community and administrative leadership, she said she was now withholding the previous communication.

“To avoid misreading of this intention and in view of the forthcoming commitment made by the UT Government that villages in Puducherry will achieve ODF by June end, I am happy to give them some more time. Therefore I am withholding my earlier communications”, she said.

After visiting Mannadipet village here, which she said was the 155th weekend trip to rural Puducherry, the Lt Governor said, “I am very anguished at the slow pace of rural sanitation. The last two years, I have not seen local representatives and concerned public officials determined to make rural Puducherry clean within a time frame. I am sorry this cannot go on”. 

She lashed out at the local representatives, community leaders and public officials for showing ‘no interest’ in making rural Puducherry clean within a time frame. “In all our rural visits, we have seen community leaders putting forth various demands on behalf of the people, but I have never seen any of them impatient at cleaning up the village in their constituency which  is the cause of several diseases”, she said.

“If you want dialysis machine, clean up your village. You want free rice, clean up your village... Men, women children, everyone clean up your village. You have one month’s time. It will be given to you only on the condition that the village is clean”, said Ms Bedi in her address to the villagers.

She later wrote to Chief Minister V. Narayanasami informing him of her decision and her order to the Civil Supplies Commissioner to send notices to all the villages giving them time till May 31 to clean up their villages. “This action, I presume, will inculcate a sense of responsibility/duty amongst our people and will hasten our objective of Swachh Grameen Union Territory”, she told the CM.

CM Narayanasamy, needless to say, was not pleased with the Lt Governor’s decision. He slammed it saying it was against Constitution.  So did many political leaders and social activists. AIADMK legislature party leader A Anbazhagan called Ms Bedi’s order autocratic and said it cannot be accepted. She was threatening poor villagers, which was unbecoming of her position as Lt. Governor, he said.

Ms Bedi’s decision to stop rice for the poor became a huge ‘hit’ on the social media through the day, with most people slamming her as being insensitive towards the poor and punishing the villagers for the failure of her officials down the line.

One twitteratti following her post showed her home city Delhi in all its glorious filth and said: “Madam, this is your own Delhi where you have born and brought up! Don’t blame @ArvindKejriwal for this because it’s the responsibility of BJP ruled MCD. Please clean your backyard first. Jai Hind”. 

Another tweet wondered if those villagers who had no toilets of their own could use those available at Ms Bedi’s Raj Nivas. Yet another tweet demanded to know if Kiran Bedi considered herself to be the queen of Puducherry.

However, Ms Bedi’s tweet announcing the retraction of the hard decision on rice got her some positive responses, with some encouraging her to carry on her “good work”. One of them posted: Ji ignore this fringe politicians…they all are grew up in garbage only... they never want to see any change. Look at all roads in Chennai and Tamil nadu it’s filthy and dirty everywhere...”