"I am delighted, absolutely delighted that Vijay Mallya bought these things and they will now come back to India," he said.

Recalling that he was very apprehensive that something might go wrong at the auction, Gandhi said with the help of his friend and former cricketer Dilip Doshi he was trying to get the items back.

"We had put a safety measure in place and Doshi was also bidding for these items. But when we realised that there may be an Indian bidding against him, he stopped his bid at 1.7 million," he told NDTV.

Asked if he was surprised at industrialist Mallya's bid, he said, "I won't say that I was very surprised. I think at the back of my mind I was hoping that something like this will happen because I always believed that miracles do happen."

Gandhi said that Mallya was able to "outbid" everyone and buy the five iconic items of the Mahatma.

Asked if the Father of the Nation's legacy had been somewhat lost, he said Bapu's legacy has been allowed to wither away and become distant from the people.