Varanasi, June 16 (IANS): In remarks that will trigger controversy, the BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit chief Laxmikant Bajpayi on Tuesday said he found the mouth of Islamic clerics stinks.

Reacting to the statement by state Urban Development Minister Mohammad Azam Khan that yoga and Yogis smelt of communalism, he said: "If he finds yoga and yogis stinking, I feel the same coming from the mouths of maulanas."

Bajpayi, who was visiting the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, sought to clarify that his remark was in reaction to what the minister said.

Accusing Azam Khan of crossing all "decent limits of political discourse time and again", Bajpayi said the minister should learn to respect the point of view of others.

He also slammed the state government's response to the barbaric killing of a journalist in Shahjahanpur who was set on fire allegedly at the behest of a state minister, and said that "murder of democracy was in the DNA of the Samajwadi Party".