Delhi elections 2015: Won't let her become CM — Lawyers

NEW DELHI: Upping the ante, Delhi district court lawyers on Thursday continued to protest against BJP's chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi. The lawyers, from all six district courts in the capital, came together at the Tis Hazari court complex and condemned BJP's decision to name the country's first woman IPS officer Bedi as its CM candidate for the assembly elections.
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In a statement, the coordination committee of all district court bar associations said the "legal fraternity wants to place on record that the decision to make her (Bedi) the chief ministerial candidate on the basis of her administrative skill is contrary to the records".
The lawyers' anger dates back to 1988 when as deputy commissioner (north), Bedi had ordered a lathicharge on a group of Delhi Bar Association members present outside her office to protest against the handcuffing of one of their arrested colleagues inside a court. Police had maintained that they tried to barge in and hurt Bedi, forcing them to act.
On Thursday, the protesters demonstrated against Bedi by burning her effigy and raising slogans. Delhi High Court Bar Association president Rajiv Khosla termed it a "sad day", saying BJP had disappointed thousands of lawyers by its decision. "We have endorsed Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the very beginning and now consider it to be our duty to ask him to ensure that she should not be treated as CM candidate."
Slamming Bedi, the veteran lawyer said she didn't even deserve to be an MLA. "She is a lady who doesn't believe in discussion, who doesn't believe in talks. She only believes in lathi which is why she assaulted lawyers by brutal lathi-charge on lawyers. Except lathicharge she has done nothing at all. Thus, the legal fraternity in no circumstances shall ever accept Bedi as chief minister of Delhi. Burning of effigy is a mark of our protest. Let her file for defamation, we are ready," Khosla added.
However, the secretary of high court bar association, Abhijat, disagreed, clarifying that Khosla's comments are in his individual capacity and the bar association doesn't subscribe to his stand on Bedi.
Following the lathicharge, a commission of enquiry led by Justice D P Wadhwa, a sitting Delhi high court judge, had indicted police and Bedi. It had said that while the lawyer's arrest on the charge of theft was "justified", his handcuffing was not. The commission also slammed the police action as "indiscriminate and unjustified".