Shoe hurled at BJP leader GVL Narasimha Rao; suspect detained

New Delhi, Apr 18: A man hurled a shoe at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao during a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday. He was speaking about the candidacy of Sadhvi Pragya and was asking why Congress and other parties have a problem with the BJP candidate.

The man, who threw the shoe at BJP MP GVL Narasimha Rao during a press conference, has been identified as Shakti Bhargav, and he was latter held by security personnel present during the presser.

The incident happened when Rao was addressing media over Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur's nomination. Speaking of the Congress party, Rao was interrupted by a flying shoe that nearly missed him.

According to reports, Bhargav, a native of Kanpur is a doctor in profession. Bhargav was sitting quietly among the reporters during the BJP press conference.

Seconds after the shoe attack, the man was apprehended by the security personnel and whisked away from the site. At the moment, Bhargava is in police custody.

However, this is the first time that GVL Narasimha Rao was attacked.

Later, Rao said, "Condemnable action on the part of the Congress party. This is another attempt by another Congress inspired person. Who comes in here to show the same kind of mentality... "

He then urged the media persons to remain seated and proceed as planned.

This incident reminds of a similar case that happened in April 2016, when a man identified as Ved Sharma and claiming to be from the Aam Aadmi Sena (a breakaway faction from Aam Aadmi Party) had thrown a shoe at the Delhi chief minister Kejriwal when he was addressing a press conference in the secretariat.

Ever since Kejriwal entered public life, he has been the target of several projectile attacks.

In October 2016, two ABVP activists threw ink at Kejriwal for his comments on surgical strikes by the army on terror launch pads across the Line of Control in Transport Nagar of Rajasthan's Bikaner district.