Kiran Bedi, the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, has been bombarded with criticism on social media over her tweets congratulating France for its FIFA World Cup victory. “We won,” she tweeted in her first reaction, in a reference to Puducherry’s past as a French colony.
As the message gathered more criticism and derision than World Cup cheer, Kiran Bedi followed it up with a tweet underlining that Puducherry is an “erstwhile French Territory”.
https://twitter.com/thekiranbedi/status/1018544385108082689
“Congrats my brothers & sisters in Puducherry. We won. In Puducherry we can build on this spirit of celebration by promoting football in UT by organising inter village, inter town and inter city football tournaments. It costs just ONE ball to unite, as was visible in French Team,” she tweeted last night, after France defeated Croatia 4-2 in the FIFA final.
Puducherry, earlier known as Pondicherry, was a French colony until it merged into the Indian Union in 1962.
Ms Bedi’s first tweet baffled many who wondered what she meant by saying “we won”. India, after all, ranked 97th in football by the last count and did not play in FIFA.
Then came another tweet, with more explanation.
When one shares joy it multiplies. #Puducherry is a place of celebrations and shared joy.
It’s spiritual and nature gifted.
It has inherited its water harvesting infra from the French.
People are grateful to them for the Tanks,Lakes,Ponds, Canals & Channels.We owe a lot to them https://t.co/BnullaTivA— Kiran Bedi (@thekiranbedi) July 16, 2018
As far as her critics went, every tweet made it worse.
https://twitter.com/thekiranbedi/status/1018544385108082689
https://twitter.com/thekiranbedi/status/1018544385108082689
Ms Bedi, a former Indian Police Service officer, was appointed Puducherry’s Lieutenant Governor in 2016. Her two years in office have been fairly controversial, with constant run-ins with the Congress government and Chief Minister V Narayanaswamy.
