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Updated: Jan 16, 2015 13:38 IST

The internet never forgets and your two-year old tweets can return to trouble you: activist and former police officer Kiran Bedi was reminded of this when she joined the BJP and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership.

"I joined BJP due to the inspirational leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," she said at a function where she joined the BJP. "I wanted to sacrifice my entire life to social work. But he inspired me to join political life."

Within minutes Twitter was flooded with screenshots and links to Bedi's tweets questioning Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat riots when he was the state's chief minister. Tweets with screenshots pointed out that on March 16, 2013 Bedi had tweeted: "One day NaMo will need to respond with clarity about riots massacre. Despite Courts clearing him so far."

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold And she's buying a stairway to heaven. pic.twitter.com/aX1z6nBgUH — Yogi Scotchynath (@scotchism) January 15, 2015

This wasn't the first time she had done so. On April 10, 2012, Bedi had in a tweet reminded Modi that the special investigation team probing the riots had cleared him but that was not the end of the matter.

Bedi, the country's first IPS woman officer, seems to have mixed feelings about Modi though. On the very day of her "clarity about riots" tweet in 2013, she had praised Modi and his "out of the box" ideas in a string of posts.

As BJP president Amit Shah confirmed that Bedi will contest the Delhi assembly elections, people on Twitter also reminded her of the time she had "rubbished" allegations that she supported the BJP or sought public office.

Offering without comments ;-) pic.twitter.com/48t1YgJxHo — Abhisar Sharma (@abhisar_sharma) January 15, 2015

As Bedi posed for the cameras at the BJP's office, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah advised her about 'Twitter history'.

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh wished Bedi well but with sarcasm. "U Turn Ms Kiran Bedi? Or genuine change of heart? My best wishes to you. May God be with you!" he tweeted with a screenshot of Bedi's tweet on 2012 riots.



Speculation about the top cop joining the now ruling party has, however, been strife since time immemorial.

Bedi's political journey started in 2012 when she joined Anna Hazare's anti-corruption campaign. In 2013, however, when his aide Arvind Kejriwal started making political strides with his Aam Aadmi Party, the 'Hazare camp' - including Bedi - was quite vocal about their disapproval of the move.

As the rift widened, Bedi was seen increasingly sympathetic towards the BJP, and has remained so since.

"I thought @thekiranbedi already was in the BJP. :)" -- a tweet by Washington Post's India correspondent Annie Gowen sums up that this sentiment, too, wasn't lost on Twitter.

(You can reach the author on Twitter @saxenavishakha)