Former Bhutan prime minister's act of chivalry shows politicians can be sophisticated too

Thimpu, Sept 18: World leaders stealing limelight for their chivalrous or goodwill gesture is not something new. We have seen Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as one such leader who often makes the headlines more for his acts other than political. But here we have a leader from our part of the world who recently rocked the social media for his chivalry and the man is none other than former prime minister of Bhutan Tshering Tobgay.

Tobgay, who is just a day short of turning 53, was recently seen carrying his wife piggyback on a muddy terrain of his mountainous country. The former prime minister posted the photo on his Twitter account and captioned it: "Not as dashing as Sir Walter Raleigh, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do to keep his lady's feet clean."

Sir Walter Raleigh, a 16th century British explorer, poet and captain of the Queen's Guard, is known to have spread his expensive cloak over a puddle to enable Queen Elizabeth I walk without wetting her feet and it was considered an act of chivalry of the highest order. Though there are doubts over the story, yet it is cited as a popular anecdote.

The tweet was retweeted 1.3k times and liked 5.6k times.

Tobgay's act impressed the Twitterati and tweets kept pouring in, praising the man for his humility. A tweet even said that he had raised the bar for other husbands to follow.

Tobgay served as the seventh prime minister of Bhutan between 2013 and 2018 after serving as the Opposition leader in the nascent democracy in the five years prior to becoming the premier. The Harvard-educated politician, who is also an environmentalist and cultural advocate, is the leader of the People's Democratic Party.

Here's how Twitterati reacted:

Tobgay's chivalrous act, however, did not help his political fortunes this electoral season in Bhutan. Recently, a shocking mandate in the first round of elections showed Tobgay's party getting ousted from the race and will not feature in the second and final round to be held in October.