The debate over Lord Hanuman continued on Friday, with an Uttar Pradesh minister claiming that the Hindu deity belonged to the Jat community.
"Jats are descendants of Lord Hanuman. Hanumanji was a Jat," Uttar Pradesh Religious Affairs Minister Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary told PTI.
His remarks follow those of his party colleague and MLC Bukkal Nawab, who on Thursday said Lord Hanuman was "actually a Muslim". Last month, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had claimed that the monkey god was a Dalit.
Explaining the rationale behind his statement, Chaudhary said, "Lord Ram's wife, goddess Sita, was abducted by Ravan, but Lanka was burnt by Hanumanji. It's injustice being done to someone by someone and the third person does not know either of them. This is the nature of Jats...they intervene whenever any injustice is done to anybody."
Campaigning for the recently concluded assembly elections, Adityanath had said, "Hanuman was a forest dweller, deprived and a Dalit. Bajrang Bali worked to connect all Indian communities together, from north to south and east to west."
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