According to a lawmaker from his party, RJD, who posted a video on Twitter, Tejashwi Yadav, the deputy chief minister of Bihar, washed a statue of Mahatma Gandhi last month outside the British Parliament in Westminster, London.
"Tejashwi Yadav Ji discovered the monument to be unclean when he went to pay respects to the revered bronze statue of the Father of the Nation. When he saw this, he could not help but clean it with his handkerchief, "explained Rishi Kumar, a lawmaker from the Obra district of Aurangabad.
In his tweets in Hindi, the MLA continued, "His thinking demonstrates his faith in Mahatma Gandhi and Gandhian ideas."
Tejashwi Yadav recently took back his position as deputy chief minister after chief minister Nitish Kumar rekindled his coalition with the RJD and Congress by breaking with the BJP.
While many comments commended the action, some criticized it as a "publicity stunt," claiming that the statue wasn't dirty in the first place. "Set the correct priorities. Look at how filthy Patna is. "In reaction to the MLA's remark, one Twitter user said.
The nine-foot monument is based on a photograph taken in 1931 of Mahatma Gandhi visiting Ramsay MacDonald, the UK prime minister at the time, in his office.
During the "Black Lives Matter" rallies two years ago, the statue was vandalized with the word "racist" written because of some of Gandhi's opinions, particularly those he had when living in South Africa. Arun Jaitley, India's then-finance minister, launched it in 2015 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's arrival in India from South Africa and the beginning of his fight for Indian independence.
This statue, one of several leaders' sculptures erected nearby, was declared "an appropriate homage to his memory… and a lasting monument to our relationship" by the then-Chancellor of the UK Exchequer, George Osborne, in 2014 while on a visit to India.
Sculptor Philip Jackson created it following the collection of public donations by a trust established by well-known Indians in the UK.