Is expulsion enough for insult to Maya

So low was the personal abuse hurled at the stalwart UP leader Mayawati by a vice-president of the state BJP that the saffron party’s bigwigs quailed in Parliament when a united Opposition tore into it on Wednesday.

In the Rajya Sabha, finance minister Arun Jaitley, the Leader of the House, was for once pushed on the back foot. He said, “It is not right and I condemn the use of such words and I will look into this matter...”

Ms Mayawati was present in the House and made it clear that a mere expression of regret will not do.

State elections are due in UP in just over six months’ time. If the BJP performs below par, many believe that the countdown for the Modi government at the Centre may just begin. In the event the BJP’s boorish vice-president has been expelled from the party to assuage feelings.

Is this adequate retribution for comparing a leading light of the Opposition to a sex-worker Leave alone the dalits, whom Ms Mayawati has represented in spectacular fashion for more than a quarter century, would society more broadly think the man who insulted the former chief minister in this singularly vile fashion had received proportionate punishment

The BJP would doubtless be weighing this question as it desperately tries to overcome its image of being an anti-dalit party and takes steps to win over local-level dalit leaders in UP to break into Ms Mayawati’s stronghold. The fact that the BJP leader guilty of traducing the country’s most significant dalit voice belongs to a traditionally domineering upper caste, complicates the picture for the BJP, which is trying to strike a balance between the upper castes — its customary adherents — and the traditionally oppressed dalit society which it is trying to woo.

In recent times, particularly since the establishment of a majority BJP government at the Centre, leading figures of the BJP, and the Sangh Parivar in general, have notched up quite a record of the use of abusive language and innuendo, especially against the minorities and the dalits, and have not spared the tallest Opposition leaders, among them Sonia Gandhi. Lines of gender have been crossed, just as in the present instance. It is hard to recall a single case of anyone being punished.

When a junior minister of the Modi government — a sadhvi, meaning a woman from a religious order — let fly in unprintable language against Muslims in a Delhi speech, the PM said he was personally regretful and urged the Opposition not to block Parliament proceedings. That’s the last anyone heard of Mr Modi intervening in such shocking cases. It will be watched with interest if such a pitiable record will be maintained when the crucial UP polls are near.