A statue of BR Ambedkar in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Budaun district, which raised eyebrows after it was painted saffron, was repainted blue on Tuesday, ANI reported. Bahujan Samaj Party workers repainted the statue on the orders of the party’s regional head Hemendra Gautam, who was present at the unveiling of the statue on Monday.

Gautam evaded a reporter’s question about why he had repainted the statue when villagers did not object to its colour.

The statue was reportedly defaced last month and was replaced with a new one sculpted in Agra. Samajwadi Party MLA Sunil Singh Sajan had accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led state government of pushing its own agenda by colouring the statue saffron, which is associated with right-wing nationalist groups.

The state secretariat in Lucknow was painted a shade of saffron in 2017. The Adityanath-led government came in for heavy criticism in January after it coloured the outer walls of the Haj House saffron. The government later replaced an official at the state Haj Committee, who had reportedly passed the order. A week later, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav criticised the government after it painted a block of 100 toilets saffron in a village in Yadav’s home district of Etawah.