Aishwarya Rai

India’s culture minister Ambika Soni has offered to quit in a row over whether Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai is a reincrnated Hindu goddess.

Soni has been the top Indian government legal spokesman and had argued in court in favor of construction plans for an official sacred area that Aishwarya devotees believe has mythological connections to the actress,

“But the controversy has stirred up a hornets’ nest,” Soni said today after opposing litigants said they’d been stung by her assumptions. And now Minister Ambika Soni has said she will quit if asked to by the prime minister.

However she has the backing of two directors of the Archaeological Survey of India, which prepared the court affidavit that says evidence exists for the Aishwarya Living Goddess reincarnation theory.

Some hardline Hindu opponents of the government accused the administration of blasphemy after Soni spoke out in public this week.

A number of protesters then carried out demonstrations and arson attacks in Delhi, Bhopal, and on a number of key religious sites worshipped as Aishwarya Living Goddess shrines.

There has been no comment on the matter from Aishwarya herself or from her husband Abichek Bachchan.