News Brief
Days After SP Leaves Swami Prasad Maurya To Defend His Remarks On Ramlalla's Pran Pratishtha Himself, He Resigns From Post
Nishtha Anushree
Feb 13, 2024, 07:06 PM | Updated 07:46 PM IST
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Neo-Buddhist leader Swami Prasad Maurya, known for his anti-Hindu statements, resigned from the national general secretary post of Samajwadi Party (SP).
This comes days after the party did not defend his statements against Ramlalla's pran-pratishtha in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly where he questioned its need.
In his resignation letter to SP national president Akhilesh Yadav, Maurya said that it is discriminatory that despite being a national general secretary, his statements are being branded as being personal.
He highlighted that statements of other national general secretaries are taken as party statements, but not his, hence he is resigning from this "unimportant post."
However, Maurya expressed commitment to remain in the party without any post. He also highlighted his contributions to increasing the party's voter base to Adivasis, Dalits and Backwards.
Last week, Maurya said, "When Ramlalla is being worshipped for thousands of years, then what's the question of pran-pratishtha by spending crores of rupees."
Responding to this an SP leader Manoj Pandey said, "Whatever Swami Prasad is saying, I won't comment on that. The person who has lost his mental stability will keep speaking like this."
"Party has told him many times but if a demented man isn't listening to the party's direction no one can do anything," Pandey added. Notably, Akhilesh Yadav had reportedly instructed party leaders to not comment on religious matters last month.
However, Maurya didn't stop even after this. Last month, he defended the Mulayam Singh Yadav government's decision to fire on karsevaks by saying that it was the then government's "duty to fire bullets on anarchic elements".
He had earlier said, "Hindu ek dhokha hai" and on the occasion of Diwali, he disrespected Hinduism by questioning the existence of Goddess Lakshmi and said, "How can Lakshmi be born with four hands."
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Nishtha Anushree is Senior Sub-editor at Swarajya. She tweets at @nishthaanushree.
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