Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Bahadur Singh Koli triggered a controversy in the Rajasthan Assembly on Monday by likening the budgets presented by the Hindutva party and the Congress to the birth of a boy and a girl, The Indian Express reported.

“Ours is a youth budget, theirs is an old-age budget,” said Koli, who represents the Weir Assembly constituency in Bharatpur, speaking during the debate on the state Budget. “Our honourable CM Bhajan Lal Sharma, our government gave birth to a boy in the very first budget, and then again in the second and third budgets.”

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He added: “The one who gives birth to a boy in their youth is always useful.”

Referring to the previous Congress government, Koli said: “When Ashok Gehlot was the CM, he made announcements in his last budget, but a girl child was born, not a boy child, and hence you are sitting in the Opposition.”

Other BJP MLAs seated near Koli were seen laughing during his remarks, the newspaper reported.

Koli, a third-term MLA and former Lok Sabha MP, has two sons and two daughters.

The comments drew criticism from Leader of Opposition Tika Ram Jully, who demanded a public apology.

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“The anti-girl child remarks made by the BJP MLA are clear evidence of the BJP’s anti-women and patriarchal mindset,” The Indian Express quoted Jully as saying. “His assertion that the Bhajan Lal government’s budget is ‘born a boy’ and the Gehlot government’s budget is ‘born a girl’ reflects a deeply conservative and narrow mindset.”

He also referred to former Chief Minister and BJP leader Vasundhara Raje, noting that the Budget Koli had praised was presented by a woman, and that the speaker of the Assembly had also previously been a woman.

“Such thinking is not only an insult to women but also undermines efforts to achieve gender equality in society,” The Indian Express quoted Jully as saying. “If public representatives themselves use such discriminatory language, how will gender discrimination be eradicated?”