India’s most prominent Untouchable politician has been ordered by the Supreme Court to respond to allegations that she spent £256 million of public money on building statues — including many of herself.

Mayawati, 53, has built dozens of monuments to herself, other prominent Untouchables, and her party since becoming chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state and one of its poorest.

The one-named former school teacher, who has made no secret of her desire to be India’s first Untouchable Prime Minister, unveiled another 15 statues — including two of herself — last Thursday alone.

She and her supporters have long argued that the statues are designed to raise the status of India’s 160 million Untouchables, also known as Dalits, who occupy the lowest rungs of the Hindu caste hierarchy.

The Supreme Court has given her four weeks from Monday to respond to a public interest lawsuit from Ravi Kant, a lawyer who accuses her of squandering public funds urgently needed for public services. “In such a state where the human development index is so low each rupee should go for development,” Mr Kant said.

He accused her of building at least 40 statues — including six of herself and 60 marble elephants — the symbol of her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) — since 2007, when she won her fourth term as chief minister. Most of the new monuments are in a 130-acre park in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, built in honour of B. R. Ambedkar, a Dalit who drafted the Indian Constitution, and another 30acre park dedicated to Kanshi Ram, the Dalit founder of the BSP.

Mayawati’s government has never publicly given an estimate for such projects but Mr Kant estimated the cost to be at least 20 billion rupees (£256 million) based on responses to a right to information plea he filed last year. That revealed the 60 marble elephants alone cost 520 million rupees.

India’s ruling Congress Party is now using the court’s ruling to try to dent Mayawati’s support among Dalits further, after her disappointing performance in this year’s general election.

Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s Home Minister, said that it was shameful to waste money on statues. “Of what use will be the statues in that state?” he asked.

Mayawati, also known as the ‘Dalit Queen’, responded by accusing Congress, which is led by Sonia Gandhi, of discriminating against Dalits by only spending money on monuments to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

“Had memorials for eminent persons belonging to the Dalit community been built by the governments that ruled the country after Independence, the BSP government would not have felt the need for the task,” she said.

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