Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Surendra Singh on Thursday said children are a gift from god and every Hindu should have at least five – two for the man, two for the woman and one surplus.

“India can become strong, when Hindus are strong,” PTI quoted Singh as saying. “When Hindu is weak, India is weak,” he said, adding that Hindus will become a minority if there is “no balance” in population control.

Singh told ANI that it is every spiritual leader’s desire for every couple to have a minimum of five children and such a step is necessary to increase the population of Hindus in India. “This way the population will be under control, and Hindutva would remain intact,” he said.

Earlier this month, Singh claimed that even Hindu god Ram would not have been able to stop incidents of rape. “Such incidents can only be controlled by inculcating ‘sanskar’ [good values] among men, women and children and not through ‘samvidhan’ [constitution] of government,” he said on July 7.

Singh, who represents Bairia in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, is known for making controversial statements. In April, he compared West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to Surpanakha, the mythological character from the Ramayana epic. Surpanakha was the sister of Ravana, the ruler of Lanka who had abducted Sita.