Women safety central issue, not full statehood for Delhi: Kiran Bedi

New Delhi: A day after joining BJP, former IPS officer Kiran Bedi on Friday said that full statehood for Delhi was not the "central" issue even as she stressed on the need for ensuring women's security and cleanliness in the city.

"I don't think this (full statehood) is a central issue right now and let's not divert the issue. Women security is an important issue and second issue is cleanliness of the city," Bedi said.

Asked about her priority for Delhi, she said that for her, everybody is important from the "top position to a simple person sleeping on the street".

On being asked about campaigning for the party, she said, "I will go by party's strategies in planning." Speaking on the issue of price inflation and corruption, she said that both are now lower down.

Bedi also listed, what she termed six Ps, including people, politician, police, prosecution, prison and press, for ensuring women security in the capital.

Delhi BJP unit on Friday welcomed Bedi, who visited state party office and addressed the party workers. Going a step ahead, she also stressed on the need to train and deploy civil defence volunteers on the street to prevent crime in the city.

Telling about her strategy, she said "I as a DG (Home Guard) trained thousands of civil defence volunteers and now, all are dispersed. I will recall them. I will retrain them and reemploy them, they will be around all the street which means Delhi Police is one lakh and you have citizen police, which may be 50 thousand."

"There is a budget for civil defence which is directly under the chief minister office that's means you don't need to say that I don't have police, you have citizen police, you have civil defence," she added.

Speaking on the alleged conversion by some groups in the recent past, the BJP leader also added that there should no be forced conversion.

"I served in Mizoram as DIG and have seen conversion, but I didn't get a single case of forced conversion. If I got it, I have law to do it, there is no ban even on somebody going back., there is neither a ban on conversion nor a ban on their return." she further added.