New Delhi:
Kiran Bedi, the BJP's surprise Chief Ministerial candidate for the Delhi elections, has cemented her relationship with the party by her avowal of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its ideology.
In an exclusive interview with NDTV, the former IPS officer said the RSS, the BJP's ideological parent, was a "remarkable, large, national organisation" and that it should be in the Guinness Book of World Records as "the world's largest social work organisation."
She went on to the say, "The RSS was born at a time when the country was being divided. They managed to unite it."
When asked about comments by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, describing India as a Hindu Rashtra, or a nation solely of Hindus, she said she was "not an expert on the RSS and the BJP".
Asked on what basis she was endorsing the RSS and the BJP, she said she was looking at both formations "holistically".
Ms Bedi has been critical of the BJP's communal record in the past, even tweeting about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
"Mr Modi as per SIT may b passing the legal exam but is yet to pass prevailing perception of serious incidents which occurred under his watch [sic]," she tweeted in April 2012.
Even as late as March 2013, she said in a tweet: "One day NaMo will need to respond with clarity about riots massacre. Despite Courts clearing him so far."
But she told NDTV that her change of heart about the BJP and the prime minister is based on personal reasons. "I've evolved in my thinking about Modi," she said.