Charles Darwin’s theory of man’s evolution is “scientifically wrong”, Union Minister Satyapal Singh claimed on Friday, while suggesting that it should be changed in school and college curricula, PTI reported.

The minister of state for human resource development and a former Indian Police Service officer, said, “Since the man is seen on Earth he has always been a man,” he told reporters on Friday in Aurangabad. “Nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oral, have said they saw an ape turning into a man.”

The BJP leader was in Maharashtra to attend the All India Vaidik Sammelan. “Nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oral, have said they saw an ape turning into a man. No books we have read or the tales told to us by our grandparents had such a mention,” PTI quoted him as saying.

On Saturday evening, social media users criticised Singh’s statement.

BJP leader Ram Madhav tweeted his support, by forwarding an article from a website called Evolution News. The publisher of the site is a US think-tank called the Discovery Institute, which runs a campaign to have US high schools teach anti-evolution theories.