November 21, 2024

Lawmakers are so full of themselves nowadays that they think of government staff as their bonded labour. Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad’s inhuman act of beating an Air India staffer with shoes should be condemned in the strongest manner. If seats are not available in business class, airline staff cannot be expected to unseat a confirmed passenger to accommodate a VIP, if an MP can be called that. If Gaikwad has such a short fuse, then he is not fit to be a lawmaker.

It is good that all airlines in India – private as well as government-owned Air India - have decided to ban Gaikwad from their flights henceforth. Air India has even cancelled his return ticket from Delhi to Pune. It serves the MP right to take a train back. He has been flying too high for his own good.

Public utility staffers are always under extreme pressure. The ones who work with loss-making Air India are more so. Lack of infrastructure, poor maintenance of aircrafts and other equipment and delays in taking decisions at the top and middle level means that the employees who face the public are always in the firing line. The people take out their ire for flight delays, bad food and lack of other amenities on these employees. If MPs too join the list now and start beating them with shoes, then who will work for Air India?

Gaikwad has been reported to have penned a letter to Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan describing what problems he faced with the airlines and its employees. But whatever be the alleged provocation, raising one’s hand on a government employee cannot be condoned. As an exemplary punishment, Mahajan should cancel his election to the Lok Sabha and deprive him of all perks he will enjoy as an ex-MP. One does not know if the employee he hit was a Marathi manoos, but Shiv Sena would also do well to expel the MP from primary membership of the party. That will set an example and deter others from carrying out such high-handed and inhuman acts.