A man was detained in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur town on Monday for hurling a shoe at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.

Mr Gandhi was holding a road show in the central UP town when Hari Om Mishra, believed to be between 30 and 35 years of age, threw a shoe at the Congress leader.

The shoe did not hit Gandhi, who blamed the BJP-RSS combine for the incident.

Gandhi, one of the most protected politicians in India, is on a 2,500-km ‘Kisan Yatra’ (peasant march) across Uttar Pradesh, seeking to revive the Congress in a bellwether state it dominated before regional parties built along caste lines displaced it from power 27 years ago and left it a marginal player.

Mishra, who claimed to be a former journalist, alleged that Gandhi had no time to pay homage to the 18 soldiers killed in the militant attack on an army base last week.

Yet Gandhi was holding road shows in UP, Mishra alleged, referring to the Congress leader’s campaigns in the poll-bound state.

He also alleged that Congress had failed to deliver when the party was in power at the centre.

Soon after the incident, Gandhi hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

“Someone hurled a shoe at me. The shoe did not touch me, but I want to tell BJP and RSS people that throw as many shoes you want, I won’t back out.”

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2016