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Media Bastion Falls: Retired teacher hurls shoe at Navin Jindal

Proving that journalists did not exercise ‘sole’ rights over the new found trend of chucking shoes at leaders, a retired school teacher in Kurukshetra of Punjab took a cue from Muntadhar al-Zaidi and Jarnail Singh, and at the wrong end of his flying footwear was industrialist MP Navin Jindal who is seeking re-election from the constituency as a Congress nominee.

The shoe hurled at Jindal at an election rally by Ram Kumar, however, missed the intended target and the teacher was immediately whisked away from the rally venue by security personnel.

Kumar while hurling the shoe at Jindal attributed the action as protest against the policies of the Congress, Jindal, later said Kumar was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident.

Kumar’s action comes days after Jarnail Singh, a correspondent employed with a leading Hindi daily, hurled his shoe at Union Home Minister P Chidambaram at a press conference at the 24, Akbar Road headquarters of the Congress.

Singh’s action, which was immediately pardoned by Minister Chidambaram, was brought-on by the Congress party’s decision to field Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar as Lok Sabha nominees from Delhi.

Both Tytler and Sajjan Kumar faced allegations of involvement in the anti-Sikh riot of 1984 which were triggered by the assassination of then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi, and resulted in the macabre killing of nearly 3000 members of the Sikh community of which Singh is a part.

Despite criticism, Singh’s shoe hurling tactic touched off protests against the candidature of the two leaders and the Congress, finally withdrew their nominations late on Thursday.

Though, Singh cause has been vindicated by the flying footwear method, the ploy was first employed by Muntadhar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist employed by the al-Arabiya, when he threw his shoe at Goerge Bush during his final visit to Baghdad as the
President of the United States in December 2008.

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