Mayawati's response even more outrageous: Anupriya Patel

ALLAHABAD: The derogatory remarks of Dayashankar Singh questioning the character of Mayawati were "admittedly reprehensible", but the response by the BSP supremo and her supporters has been "even more outrageous", Union Minister Anupriya Patel today said.

"There is no denying that the words used by Dayashankar Singh were admittedly reprehensible. BJP accepted that and he has been removed from the post of state vice-president and expelled from the party for a period of six years," she said.

"However, the way the BSP supremo and her supporters have been reacting, is even more outrageous," the Apna Dal MP said.

"The words that Singh used undermined a woman's dignity and that is why he has drawn flak from his own party. He has been accused of having a patriarchal mindset which attaches no value to the dignity of women, especially to those of lower castes," the MoS for Health and Family Welfare said.

"But it is appalling that Mayawati is approving of the vicious campaign by her party supporters who are publicly abusing the expelled BJP leader's female family members in the most abominable fashion," Patel said.

"Mayawati seems hell-bent upon reducing the matter to a mere caste issue and allowing the gratuitous insults that are being heaped upon the wife and the daughter of the now expelled BJP leader," she added.

An FIR was filed yesterday against Mayawati and some of her party leaders by police on a complaint of Dayashankar Singh's mother Tetra Devi.

She alleged that Mayawati used "abusive language" against the women members of the family and BSP leaders raised "derogatory" slogans at the protest in Lucknow on Thursday during which Singh's 12-year-old daughter was also dragged into the row.