Giving access to people in my office as Puducherry L-G did not suit vested interests: Bedi

Former IPS officer Kiran Bedi said her move of allowing common people to visit her office when she was the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry did not suit certain vested interests as it ''hit their money bags''. Bedi was speaking on Thursday during an interaction at Goa Fest 2022, a three-day event organized by the Advertising Agencies Association of India and the Advertising Club.

She said that during her tenure as Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry she had opened the government systems for the common man. ''When I was opening up Lieutenant Governor's office for open hours every day for two or three hours, it was not suiting certain vested interests as it hit their money bags,'' she said.

''I was actually hitting their money bags. The money that was being diverted elsewhere, I was diverting it back to the common man. I was trying to see that the money is correctly spent on the infrastructure,'' she said.

Bedi was Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry from 28 May 2016 to 16 February 2021.

Referring to the advertising firms, Bedi said, ''You are in the business of selling products, I was in the business of providing services.'' Talking about her Puducherry stint, she said, ''As a government servant, my area was service. I had to open all the channels by which I would connect to the people, so I would walk the streets, I would bike the streets, I had my e-mails open, WhatsApp open. I had my Lieutenant Governor's office open, I had phone lines open, I did webcasting for everybody.'' Calling herself a ''very strong patriot'', she said, ''As a youngster, I had the option of getting a scholarship overseas, but I declined it and stood for IPS and stayed back.''

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