A group of Dalits on Tuesday practised what Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath preached, removing the priest of the Sankatmochan Hanuman temple in Muzaffarnagar city and appointing a Dalit priest.
The new “priest” said they were merely following the edict of Adityanath who had sought to woo Dalits in poll-bound Rajasthan by describing Hanuman as “a forest dweller, an underprivileged and a Dalit”.
The 100-strong group, carrying a banner of the Valmiki Kranti Dal, applied tilak on the foreheads of the devotees and distributed prasad for about two hours before police forcefully removed them.
Deepak Gambhir, the new “priest”, said: “Adityanath is a constitutional authority and a scholar of Hindu religion. Whatever he says are the words of God himself. So we take his statement seriously.”
“The police removed me forcefully and insulted the research of the CM. We will complain to Adityanath against the police and demand security,” Gambhir added.
