An Indian politician who encouraged people to sit in mud puddles to become immune to Covid-19 has tested positive for the disease.
Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria, a minister from the northern state of Rajasthan, tested positive on the first day of the Parliament’s monsoon session, according to reports in local media.
A month before his diagnosis, the politician shared a video of himself on Facebook sitting in a mud bath.
"Go out, get wet in the rain, sit in the dirt, work on the farm, blow a conch … and eat 'desi' things," said Mr Jaunapuria in Hindi. Desi is a Hindi term meaning local or indigenous.
"One gains immunity from doing these things," he added.
He also said: "Blowing a conch makes our lungs stronger."
The bizarre clip shows Mr Jaunapuria sitting topless in a mud puddle while he blows on a conch shell.
He then walks over to a tree and some bushes where he pulls a leaf from a branch and eats it.
Mr Jaunapuria was among 24 politicians who tested positive for coronavirus recently.
It comes after India confirmed another record jump in coronavirus cases on Thursday, logging 97,894 cases in the past 24 hours.
The Health Ministry said that the new cases raised the nation’s confirmed total to more than 5.1 million since the pandemic began.
It said 1,132 more people died in the past 24 hours, for a total of 83,198.
At the current rate of infection, India is expected within weeks to surpass the 6.6 million reported cases in the United States, currently the country with the most reported infections.
Nationwide, India is testing more than one million samples per day.
