A 20-year-old marble statue of Mahatma Gandhi was painted saffron in Dhaka-Ghanshyampur village in Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, The Telegraph reported.
“Those doing politics in the name of saffron must be behind this act. They should have spared the Father of the Nation,” Sarvesh Kumar, a villager told the news daily.
According to the report, Additional district magistrate Bachchu Singh said that the villagers had not lodged a formal complaint against anybody, but the police had begun a probe on the matter.
“We all know that the BJP government is painting every government building saffron. We’ll protest their latest act in Dhaka-Ghanshyampur,” District Congress president Kaushal Mishra directly said.
A Gandhi statute painted in saffron colour shouldn’t come as a surprise under Yogi Adityanath’s rule in Uttar Pradesh. Recently, many government buildings, schools, police stations and even Mughalsarai railway station were painted saffron.