Attempt of shoe hurling at Manmohan Singh is "an insult to the democracy', says BJP

New Delhi/Rae Bareli, Apr 27 (ANI): The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has termed the incident of shoe hurling at Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh as "an insult to the democracy".

"We say there should be no politics on the issue. The one who has done this has committed an insult to the democracy. It should be strongly condemned," said BJP spokesperson Sidharth Nath Singh.

Meanwhile, Congress President Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that such acts were not part of Indian culture.

"When there is a problem, there are ways of dealing with it.

There are both right and wrong ways to express dissatisfaction. I believe this is not the right way. This is not our culture. Our country's culture is non-violence. So, shoe hurling is not ours," she said in Rae Bareli.

On Sunday, a young engineer in his early twenties threw a shoe at Dr. Singh while he was addressing an election rally in Ahmedabad. The shoe, however, missed its mark.

The offender identified as Hitesh Chauhan was sitting in the first row during the rally when he hurled his shoe.

During enquiry from Hitesh, it was learnt that he was an engineering student and a resident of Bapu Nagar area of the city, and threw the shoe to secure publicity.

Prime Minister has advised not to lodge any First Information Report with the police against Hitesh and forgave him.

On April 7, an accredited journalist in New Delhi had expressed his protest over CBI giving clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in anti-Sikh riots of 1984, by hurling a shoe at Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram. Congress leader Naveen Jindal also became a victim of a similar incident when an agitated school teacher hurled a shoe towards him during a rally.

In another such incident, a party member hurled his wooden footwear at Bharatiya Janata Party's primeministerial candidate L.K. Advani during a rally in Madhya Pradesh's Katni town. (ANI)