Mahatma finds space with Churchill at Parliament square in London

The 9-foot statue was unveiled jointly by British Prime Minister David Cameron and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as chants of "Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram", a popular bhajan of Mahatma rented the chill March air in east side London. Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan and Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi were the special invitees for the occasion.

Mahatma Gandhi is the first Indian, and the only person never to have been in a public office, to be honored with a statue at the London Square. The statue stands exactly opposite Britain's Houses of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster and in line with statues of iconic leaders like Nelson Mandela, and Britain's war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill who had described the Mahatma as a "half naked fakir".

The statue depicts the leader of the Indian national movement wrapped in a shawl to shield himself from the London cold during his last visit to the British capital in 1931.

This statue is a magnificent tribute to one of the most towering figures in the history of world politics and by putting Mahatma Gandhi in this famous Square we are giving him an eternal home in our country," said the British Prime Minister India's finance minister Arun Jaitley, invited to the UK especially for the unveiling ceremony, said the statue was a tribute to the British sense of civility - both British liberalism and British democracy - that they now choose to honor someone who was conventionally regarded by them as their adversary.