Amid row over slur on Bihar girls, Uttarakhand minister’s husband faces fire from NDA, Oppn

In the video, Sahu is seen asking a man why he had not got married. “You can get women in Bihar for Rs 20,000-25,000. Come with me, we will get you married,” Sahu is purportedly heard saying, to laughter from the audience. As per the 2011 Census, the hill state had a gender ratio of 963 women for every 1,000 men.

As the controversy grew, Sahu apologised for his statement. However, the BSWC took suo motu cognisance of the matter before serving him a notice seeking his explanation for the remarks. “The statement not only denigrates women but is also disrespectful to Bihar,” a BSWC official said.

The RJD has hit out at the BJP, labelling Sahu’s statement “retrogressive” and “disrespectful”. “What Sahu says underlines the thought process of the RSS and BJP, and how they believe in and draw from tenets of Manusmriti. A simple apology from Sahu would not do. We are also appalled at the audience for cheering Sahu’s remarks,” RJD national spokesperson Subodh Kumar Mehta told The Indian Express.

Tejashwi Prasad, the RJD’s Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Assembly, said in a post on X: “BJP leaders are saying that after buying women’s votes for Rs 10,000, they’ll now bring girls from Bihar for Rs 20,000-Rs 25,000. This toxic mindset of BJP supporters towards Bihar and women is nothing new.”

JD(U) chief spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said: “How can anyone speak like Sahu did? He was speaking like a lumpen element. The State Women Commission has done the right thing by serving Sahu a notice. Such people should be brought to the book.”

BJP national spokesperson Guru Prakash Paswan also castigated Sahu, saying that “His statement is highly insensitive. On the one hand, the Bihar government is committed to women empowerment, on the other hand such statements are being made. Bihar is land of Sita and Bharati… Strong action must be taken against the person (Sahu) and an example should be set so that others cannot dare make such derogatory remarks.”

While issuing his apology, Sahu has claimed that he was speaking in “a general sense and did not mean to offend anyone”. His wife Arya, a Cabinet minister, has not commented on the matter so far. She is the BJP MLA from the Scheduled Caste-reserved Someshwar seat in Almora district.

Arya, the only woman minister in the Uttarakhand Cabinet led by Pushkar Singh Dhami, is a two-time MLA. She was among the nine Congress MLAs who left the party in 2016 to join the BJP, leading to the collapse of the then Harish Rawat government.

Neither Arya nor Sahu are strangers to controversy. Not only has Arya had run-ins with her own departments’ bureaucrats in the past, she also faced the Opposition’s accusations of using religion to promote a government programme in 2022. In 2024, Arya had filed a complaint against a woman and her uncle, accusing them of allegedly extorting money using the names of Sahu and her.

Sahu has also made headlines in various cases. In 2021, he was issued a non-bailable warrant in a 31-year-old double-murder case, in which charges were framed against 11 people, including Sahu. The BJP says he is not a member of the party.

On Saturday, reacting to the row, the BJP’s Uttarakhand media in-charge Manveer Chauhan said, “We are not a party that shares this disgraceful sentiment. We condemn the statement and have no relationship with the man (Sahu).”