India's ruling BJP MP Ashwani Vaishnav on Monday raised the issue of racial discrimination in the UK -- the latest being an incident at Oxford University.

The issue concerns Rashmi Samant, a 22-year-old student from Karnataka's Udupi. She contested the elections for the presidency of the Oxford Student Union and won. However, following some of her old social media posts being deemed "racist" and "insensitive", she was forced to quit.

Samant apologised in an open letter as soon as the posts emerged. However, as the clamour for her resignation refused to die down, she decided to quit as the president-elect.

Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar said that the UK is a friendly country and a large diaspora lives there and the matter will be raised at an appropriate forum.

Jaishankar said: "As the land of Mahatma Gandhi, we can never ever turn our eyes away from racism. Particularly so when it is in a country where we have such a large diaspora. We have strong ties with the UK. We will take up such matters with great candour when required."

"We will raise it when required and we will always champion the fight against racism and other forms of intolerance."

(IANS)