New Delhi, (The Telegraph): Ill-advised comments by Smriti Irani and BJP general secretary P. Muralidhar Rao, and Narendra Modi's silence, have made government and party appear insensitive in handling Rohith Vemula's suicide, sources in the ruling establishment feel.

The Prime Minister had issued a cryptic directive to his ministers yesterday, after the cabinet discussed the controversy, to "put the facts before the people and set the record straight", the sources said.

A news conference by Irani, the human resource development minister, and Rao's Twitter offensive have since then vitiated the BJP stand.

"The Prime Minister's directive was bereft of a political view. Nor has the BJP crafted one line on the issue," rued a Dalit MP from the party.

"Some spokespersons have projected the suicide as an offshoot of anti-nationalism and extremism. Others have questioned the victim's Dalit origins. Someone else quoted a Congress MP (P. Hanumantha Rao) to prove that suicides on the (Hyderabad Central University) campus were frequent in the past too."

The MP asked: "There's no sympathy for the victim or his family in all this, nor an acknowledgment of the discrimination against Dalits. What do I tell my people?"

Modi's silence is being seen as the root cause of the "confusion" and "contradictions". Some in the party think he might speak on the subject tomorrow at the convocation of the Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow.

Earlier, when the BJP got entangled in a political dispute, it would call a meeting that would include the chief spokesperson. This ensured the spokesperson was privy to the evolution of the party's stand and privy to all the nuances.

Nothing of the sort happens under Modi despite the slew of controversies assailing the party.

On Monday, a day after the suicide, the BJP leadership pretended as though nothing had happened despite labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya being booked for alleged abetment and transgression of the SC/ST Atrocities Act.

At a Makar Sankranti lunch at party headquarters that day, when journalists asked BJP president Amit Shah about Dattatreya, he replied "You people always catch such news, don't you?" and walked away.

Apparently, Shah was too preoccupied with his own re-election to think of anything else. Other party officials and ministers claimed ignorance.

That afternoon, as a political storm broke out, the spokespersons took their cues from the Telangana BJP, the state Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Muralidhar Rao.

The ABVP had a running feud with the Ambedkar Students Association, to which Rohith belonged. Rao, as a former ABVP leader, had been general secretary of the Osmania University students union in Hyderabad in 1984.

From their inputs emerged the line that the Ambedkar association was a hotbed of anti-nationalist and extremist thought - charges Dattatreya had earlier levelled - and that Rohith was only "half a Dalit" because his father wasn't one.

BJP's Dalit ministers, such as Thaawar Chand Gehlot, and MPs rejected this line, arguing the last thing the party should do was to brand a group of Dalit students "anti-national".

Smriti got the optics right at her news conference. She was flanked by Gehlot, the social justice and empowerment minister, and his deputy Vijay Sampla ---- both Dalits ---- and commerce and industries minister Nirmala Sitharaman, a Rajya Sabha member from Andhra Pradesh.

"Her first mistake was to over-emphasise the caste factor instead of straightaway expressing regret for what happened," a Telangana BJP source said.

"Saying that the university committee that recommended the suspensions was headed by a Dalit and that the hostel warden was a Dalit could not have helped because they amounted to tokenism."

Gehlot, who some in the BJP thought should have been fielded solo, did not get a word in edgeways while Nirmala spoke to the Telugu TV channels after the event was over.

Rao tweeted about "probing" the "anti-national agencies on campuses" and contested Rohith's caste antecedents.

"His comments reinforce our opponents' charge that we are insensitive about social issues. Terms like 'anti-national' should not be bandied about carelessly," a BJP official rued.

Photo credit: The Telegraph