Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya's asking on X how Goddess Lakshmi can have four hands has attracted sharp rebuke from many, including his own party, whose spokesperson asked him to "stop harming the party."
The leader had earlier made headlines with his controversial remarks on Ramcharitmanas and Badrinath.
Among those who took exception to his comment were leaders from the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Maurya in a post on X on Sunday, said he worshipped his wife on Diwali as she is the Lakshmi of his house, and in a true sense, a homemaker.
"... every child born in every religion, caste, race, colour and country of the whole world has two hands, two legs, two ears, two eyes and a nose with two holes. There is only a head, stomach and back; if a child with four hands, eight hands, ten hands, twenty hands and a thousand hands has not been born till date, then how can Lakshmi be born with four hands?" Maurya said in his post.
"If you want to worship Goddess Lakshmi, then worship and respect your wife who is a goddess in true sense because she fulfils the responsibility of nurturing, happiness, prosperity, food and care of your family with great devotion," read his post.
Taking an apparent dislike to what he said, SP spokesperson IP Singh asked him to stop harming the party.
He said the party does not subscribe to Maurya's remarks, which he said are his "personal views."
"When you were a cabinet minister in BJP for 5 years, you were afraid of making indecent comments on Goddess Lakshmi ji and Lord Ganesha... Stop harming the party," he wrote on X.
"Samajwadi Party respects all religions. Mainpuri's MP sister @dimpleyadav ji has returned after visiting Baba Kedarnath ji on Nov 5. Samajwadi Party has full faith in Hindu religion," Singh added.
Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam on Monday said it seems Maurya has been making his comments as part of an agenda to hurt the sanatan dharma.
"... he has been continuously giving statements that have hurt the sentiment of the Hindus. Seeing and hearing his statement, it seems that he is targeting Sanatan Dharm as part of some agenda," Krishnam told PTI.
"... he should apologise for this. I urge Yogi Adityanath ji to impose a ban on statements of Swami Prasad Maurya and his speech. It seems that Swami Prasad Maurya has taken a 'supari' to finish off the SP," he added.
BJP's national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia in a post on X said, "Hurts Hindu sentiments. He is determined to take down Akhilesh Yadav. This is a demon in a human body. Akhilesh Yadav is silent. Is all this happening only on his orders?"
Maurya on Monday said this was not the first time he said such a thing and that he had said it last Diwali too.
"I believe everyone has the freedom to celebrate festivals. I am of the view that in true sense, the housewife is the Goddess Lakshmi of the house. Our culture also says where women are respected, there is happiness and prosperity, that home is a heaven, that is where great people reside," he told PTI.
"If the Lakshmi of the house is the housewife, then worship her, respect her, give her importance. This will increase the respect of women not only in India, but all over the world," he said.
Maurya insisted he did not mean to hurt anyone with his remark.
On X, he said, "I have only done what is practical, true, scientific, and eternal. I respect Sanatan. And, I stand by what I wrote on X. I wrote it Thoughtfully."
Maurya, a prominent OBC leader in Uttar Pradesh, who had defected to the SP from the BJP just before the 2022 Assembly elections, had earlier too stoked controversies commenting on the Ramcharitmanas and Hindu temples.
The BJP considers "Brahmin religion," which is followed by only 10 per cent of the people, as the "Hindu religion" but there exists nothing like "Hindu religion," he had earlier said.
Earlier in the year, the SP leader triggered another row claiming that certain verses of Hindu epic Ramcharitmanas "insult" a large section of the society.
He had also claimed that before becoming a Hindu pilgrimage site in the eighth century, Badrinath used to be a Buddhist monastery.
