Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma has once again put his foot in his mouth, provoking demands for his expulsion from the ministry.

This time Verma alleged that Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav had “links” with terrorists. “Iske atankvadiyon se sambandh hain” (he has relations with the terrorists), the minister said referring to Mulayam while speaking at a function in Uttar
Pradesh's Gonda district, about 200 km from here on Saturday.

Gonda is the Lok Sabha constituency of Beni Verma. Samajwadi Party workers held a
demonstration in Kanpur in protest against the remark.

The remark immediately incurred the wrath of SP leaders who dubbed Beni a “man of unsound mind. Beni Verma has gone mad... he needs to be examined by some psychiatric,” SP general secretary Ram Asrey Kushwaha said. He also demanded his expulsion from the Union Cabinet.

Mulayam, who addressed a meeting organised here by the Jamiat Ulama Hind on Sunday here, also responded to the remark. “If advocating the cause of the Muslims is an act of terror, then I am indeed a terrorist,” Mulayam said.