Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has stirred a controversy with his remarks that after scrapping Article 370, “the path has been cleared to bring Kashmiri girls for marriage”.

He said this while addressing a state-level function of Maharishi Bhagirath Jayanti Samaroh in Fatehabad town on Friday.

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“Earlier ‘bahus’ (daughters-in-law) used to come from Bihar but now we will bring girls from Kashmir,” he said while speaking at the success of Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao campaign.

“Our Minister OP Dhankar used to say that he will have to bring daughters-in-law from Bihar. People nowadays have started saying the route to Kashmir is cleared and now we will bring girls from Kashmir,” Khattar said.

Earlier on Tuesday, BJP legislator from UP Vikram Saini, while explaining the advantages of the Centre’s move to scrap Article 370, had said that now the party workers could “marry fair women from Kashmir”.

His comments came on a day when the Lok Sabha passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill 2019, thus approving the resolution to revoke Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir.

In a video clip that has gone viral on the social media, the lawmaker from Khatauli was seen speaking at a function organized on Tuesday to celebrate the revoking of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

“The workers are very excited and those who are bachelors, they can get married there. There is no issue now. Earlier, there was a lot of atrocities on women. If a woman from Kashmir got married to a man from Uttar Pradesh, her citizenship would be revoked. There was different citizenship for India and Kashmir,” Saini said addressing the crowd in Hindi.

“Muslim workers should celebrate here. Get married there to a fair Kashmiri girl. There should be celebrations. Everyone should celebrate Be it Hindu or Muslims. This is something the entire country should be celebrating,” he added.

Later, asked about his statement, the MLA said that he had said nothing objectionable.

“Now anyone can get married to a Kashmiri girl without any issue. That is all I said and it is the truth. This is freedom for the people of Kashmir. That is why we organised the event on Tuesday. Now, Kashmiris have attained freedom,” Saini said.

Repealing Article 370 and Article 35A has long been one of the core BJP promises and the demand for its abrogation had risen after the Pulwama terror attack.