Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya courted yet another controversy by posting a derogatory post on Goddess Lakshmi on a social media platform on Monday.
“While worshipping and honouring my wife on the occasion of Deepotsava… I said how can a child born in any religion, caste, race, colour or country have two hands, two legs, two ears, two eyes… There is only a head, stomach and back. If a child with four hands, eight hands, ten hands, twenty hands or a thousand hands has not been born till date, then how can Lakshmi be born with four hands?” Maurya wrote on X, triggering backlash.
“If you want to worship Goddess Lakshmi, worship and respect your wife, who is a goddess in true sense because she fulfills the responsibility of nurturing, happiness, prosperity, food and care of your family with great devotion,” the SP leader wrote while sharing pictures of him with his wife.
The SP leader’s remarks drew a backlash from Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam, who called for a speaking ban on Maurya.
“Swami Prasad Maurya has got verbal diarrhoea, he needs treatment. I will ask Yogi Adityanath to put a ban on Maurya speaking,” Krishnam said.
As the controversy escalated, Maurya issued a clarification. “I had not spoken about four arms alone, I also spoke about eight arms, ten arms, 1,000 arms. No such child has ever been born in the country. If it did happen, I challenge them to tell me, I will accept it. If we make somebody with 1,000 arms or 20 arms or 10 arms on the basis of our imagination - imagination is just imagination...I said what is practical, based on truth, scientific and Sanatan too. I spoke as per Sanatan dharma. I said that people must respect their wife as she is the ‘Grih Laxmi’ in real sense,” the Samajwadi Party leader said.
Last month, Maurya had sparked a debate by saying that India and Pakistan were divided because of the Hindu Mahasabha, and not Jinnah.
“Hindu Mahasabha spoke of Hindu Rashtra a long time ago, which resulted in the formation of India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan were not divided because of Jinnah, they were divided because the Hindu Mahasabha demanded two nations,” he had said.
In August, he stoked row over his comments on Sanatan dharma. Maurya had said that Hinduism was a “hoax” and that Brahmanism was the “reason for all the disparity.”
