The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday installed a statue of BR Ambedkar in a village in Budaun district that is painted saffron and not the usual blue, IANS reported.

The statue was reportedly defaced sometime back and was replaced with this new one that was sculpted in Agra. The statue was unveiled in the presence of Bahujan Samaj Party’s regional head Hemendra Gautam and his supporters, News18 reported.

Samajwadi Party MLA Sunil Singh Sajan 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 government is busy practising politics of colour,” Sajan said. “They are busy painting buildings, boundaries, parks and so on in saffron colour. Now they are getting exposed by changing the colour of Ambedkar statue to saffron. This is not going to help them, instead people will know their intentions better now.”

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 removed 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 Etawah.