Shani Temple row: Babulal Gaur says women ‘should worship at home first’

Madhya Pradesh Senior Minister Babulal Gaur, who is quite famous for controversial remarks has said that women should worship at their homes first.

“they should first worship at home” Gaur was quoted saying in a report an English newspaper. “Leave it, women can worship at home,” he said when his response was sought on the ongoing debate on whether women should be allowed into the temple in Shani Shingnapur, a village about 330 kilometres (KM) northeast of Mumbai.

This is not the first time Babulal Gaur is making news for such reasons, earlier, the minister has said that drinking liuquor is a ‘fundamental right and status symbol’.

“Alcohol does not increase crime. People lose their consciousness after consuming alcohol and that’s how it causes crime. The person who drinks within control does not cause crime,” he said, adding,” one should not overdrink. It is one’s fundamental right. Drinking is a social status symbol these days”.

Gaur had previously said that sexual crime in Chennai is low as women wear “full clothes”.

“Women in Tamil Nadu wear full clothes and hence the crime rate is lower there as compared to other states,” he said after a visit to Chennai.

He was also at the centre of a controversy when he recalled at an event on how he had once told the wife of a Russian leader that he can teach her how to untie a dhoti.

“I told her I can’t teach you how to wear it, but I can certainly teach you how to remove it, but that too later, not now,” Gaur had said in remarks that angered women right activists.

The Minister had also described rape as a social crime, saying “sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong”.