Ramcharitmanas row: Ayodhya seer declares Rs 21L bounty on Maurya's head

The mahant of Hanumangarhi temple in Ayodhya on Monday announced a bounty of Rs 21 lakh to anyone who "beheads" Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya, who has been in headlines since his comments on Hindu epic Ramcharitmanas.

The mahant, Raju Das, said that burning of pages from the Ramcharitmanas by the Akhil Bharatiya OBC Mahasabha in Lucknow on Sunday too was Maurya' work.

Maurya, a prominent OBC leader in Uttar Pradesh, had on January 22 remarked that certain verses of the Ramcharitmanas "insult" a large section of society on the basis of caste and demanded that these be "banned".

Maurya, a cabinet minister in the previous BJP government in the state, had resigned and joined the SP before the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.

He had contested from the Fazilnagar assembly seat in Kushinagar district but lost. He was later sent to the legislative council by Akhilesh Yadav.