A temple in Uttar Pradesh’s Hamirpur district was reportedly cleaned with water from the Ganga river after Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Manisha Anuragi’s visit. Temple authorities also sent the idols to Allahabad for “purification”, ANI reported on Monday.

A priest said no woman has ever entered the temple. Anuragi visited the temple on July 12. “I was not around that day or I would have told her [Anuragi] not to go inside [the temple],” Dayanand, a priest at the Rishi Dhroom Ashram in Muskura Khurd village, told the Hindustan Times. “She went inside due to ignorance and prayed. To uphold our tradition, we had to undertake the purification process.”

Dayanand said the “idol of Rishi Dhroom was carried in a small palanquin to Allahabad for a holy bath”.

Anuragi, the MLA from Rath Assembly seat, was distributing uniforms in schools near Muskura Khurd village when she decided to visit the ashram. “It’s an insult to women if such things have happened,” Anuragi told ANI. “These are deeds of half-witted people,” she said, adding that she was not aware of the tradition and that local residents had accompanied her.

Devotees claimed the heavy rainfall lashing across the state was a result of the purification of the ashram and the idol. “The purification has satisfied the seer and it is raining,” Sanjay Raj Singh and Om Prakash said.