Katni:
The "shoe-protest" mania continues as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate
LK Advani became its latest victim. The incident occurred while Advani was at
an election rally in Katni in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday. The man who hurled the
chappal has been identified as Pavas Agrawal, a former functionary of the BJP.
He has been arrested and is being interrogated.
Earlier,
a retired school principal had thrown a shoe at Congress MP Navin Jindal in Kurukshetra.
Rajpal, a former teacher, hurled his shoe while he was addressing party workers.
In a similar incident, an agitated Dainik Jagran journalist Jarnail Singh threw
a shoe at Union Home Minister, P. Chidambaram during a press conference at the
Congress headquarters in Delhi. Last December, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist
with Egypt-based al-Baghdadia television network, had thrown his shoes at former
President George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad.
Meanwhile,
political parties condemned the shoe-throwing incident at a rally here. The BJP
requested media not to give such incidents undue publicity to prevent it from
occurring again. "I believe some mentally unsound people use these tactics as
they believe that electronic media will give this a good publicity. So, if you
people (electronic media) behave responsibly these incidents will come down,"
said Arun Jaitley, senior BJP leader. The Congress party also criticised the incident.
"I don't feel it was the right thing. In politics, you can express your opinion
if you have a difference but not by throwing shoes," said Kapil Sibbal, senior
Congress leader. Thursday's incident occurred just a couple of days after two
shoe-throwing incidents that took place with two Congress leaders. In the first
incident, which took place in New Delhi, an accredited journalist expressed his
protest over CBI giving clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in anti-Sikh
riots of 1984, by hurling a shoe before Home Minister P. Chidambaram. In the second
incident, a disgruntled retired teacher threw his sandal towards Congress leader
Navin Jindal in Kurukshetra over an unattended employment issue of his son.
- Apr 16, 2009
