Watch | 'Mother Ganga comes to wash feet of Ganga-putras, they will go to heaven': UP minister's bizarre reply to flood victims sparks outrage

Lucknow: In a brazen display of insensitivity, an Uttar Pradesh minister, who paid to a visit to the flood affected areas in Kanpur Dehat district in the state, sought to make light of their complaints telling them that the Mother Ganga came to wash their feet and that they would go to heavens merely by having its ‘darshan’.

‘’Ganga Maiya to apne putron ke pair dhone aati hain…unke darshan se putra seedhe swarg jata hai…ye Virodhi log aapko ulta padhate hain’’ (Mother Ganga comes to wash the feet of its sons… the sons will go to heavens merely by its 'darshan'…the opposition parties misinform you), UP minister Sanjay Nishad was heard telling the flood victims in Bhognipur area in the district in a video which went viral on social media on Tuesday.

Minister Sanjay Nishad

The minister’s remarks came when the flood victims complained that they had lost their homes and had nowhere to go.

‘’The entire area is submerged ... our houses have collapsed… we have nowhere to go,’’ the victims told the minister, expecting some relief but they instead got a bizarre response.

The victims were taken aback by the minister’s remarks and later said that the minister did not know that the villages he was visiting were situated near the bank of the Yamuna river and not Ganga.

Sanjay Nishad, who was the president of the Nishad Party, an alliance partner in the BJP government in the state, later distributed relief materials to the flood victims.

As many as 402 villages in 17 districts, including Agra, Chitrakoot, Lakhimpur Kheri, Ballia, Banda, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Jalaun, Etawah, were affected by the flood. Major rivers including Ganga, Yamuna and others were flowing above the danger mark at many places.