An Indian farming minister has lashed out at the "loose moral character" of imported bulls brought to his northern state of Haryana, claiming they are prone to "indiscriminate wantonness."

“Foreign bulls are more aggressive and they violate more animals, including buffaloes, because they don’t have the characteristics of our local bulls,” said Om Prakash Dhankar during a debate on stray animals in the country's state assembly on Tuesday.

"Our [Indian] bulls mate only when the female's reproductive cycle is active, whereas foreign bulls do not care about this," the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister added.

According to Haryana’s 2012 cattle census, around 100,000 bulls out of a total of around 460,000 across the state were of foreign origin.