Former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani attended a BJP event here on Saturday, her first public appearance since her acquittal in the 2002 Naroda Patiya riot case in April this year.

Kodnani was seen sharing the dais with Union textiles minister Smriti Irani and other women leaders of the ruling party on the second day of the two-day BJP women wing’s national convention at Trimandir in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

In August 2012 a special court for special investigation team cases had sentenced Kodnani to 28 years in jail. In April 2018 she was acquitted by Gujarat High Court. Kodnani is still an accused in another 2002 riot case — the Naroda Gam massacre in which 11 people were killed. The case is being heard by a special SIT court in Gandhinagar.

Maya Kodnani Telegraph file picture

After her acquittal in the Naroda Patiya case, Kodnani had told reporters that she was, and would remain, a BJP worker.

The Supreme Court-appointed SIT had arrested Kodnani in 2009 in the Naroda Patiya case while she was still the minister of women and child welfare in the erstwhile Narendra Modi government in Gujarat. She had later resigned.

Others who were present on the dais on Saturday were BJP Mahila Morcha national president Vijaya Rahatkar and MP Saroj Pandey. Thousands of women workers of the party from across the country participated in the convention.

While defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman attended the inaugural session on Friday, Smriti was present on the second day. Smriti told the gathering that women workers from across the country would contribute to ensuring that the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership would retain power in 2019.