New Delhi, May 22 (IANS): BJP leader and former IPS officer Kiran Bedi has been appointed Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, a Rashtrapati Bhawan communque said on Sunday.

"The President of India has been pleased to appoint Ms. Kiran Bedi, to be the Lt. Governor of Puducherry with effect from the date she assumes charges of her office," it said.

The first woman officer in the Indian Police Service when she joined in 1972, Bedi held key positions including Inspector General (Prisons) at Delhi's high-security Tihar Jail. Her work in one of Asia's largest jails led to her winning the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service.

After retirement, she partnered Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal in their movement against corruption and for a strong Lokpal but later joined the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the February 2015 Delhi assembly polls and was the party's chief ministerial nominee.

However, the party was virtually wiped out, winning only three seats in the 70-member Delhi assembly while she herself lost in the Krishna Nagar constituency in east Delhi.