Phenko, Phenko, ek aur Phenko !

Rahul Gandhi on Monday became the latest target of ‘shoegate’ when a youth hurled a shoe at him while he was addressing an election rally in Vikasnagar,Dehradun, Uttarakhand. It Seems swinging Shoes is Fashion in Uttarakhand,This comes barely two days after a similar incident with members of Team Anna.

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, himself a victim of shoe-throwing incident, on Monday said he liked the response of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to a similar attack on him. "I like Rahul's reaction to the shoe throwing 'phenko, phenko, ek aur phenko' (throw, throw one more)," Omar wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter. A shoe was hurled towards Gandhi by a youth while he was addressing an election rally near Dehradun in Uttarakhand.It is unfortunate. For some time, the BJP has been saying that people will come on streets and a civil war could take place. Such kind of irresponsible statements encourage such acts

The shoe missed its mark. It fell short of its target by a good ten meters. But this incident clearly suggests that all is clearly not well in this country. People are losing hopes and they are resorting to acts of soft violence such as a pat on the chubby cheeks, the spray of black ink on the face that we’ve been seeing on our TV screens for as long as we can remember and a shoe hurling (that misses its mark) at someone who is the likely PM of our country.

Why is there so much of dissent and intolerance in the air? Everybody is out there to grab fifteen minutes of his fame by indulging in the most comic form of dissent. Who isn’t aware of the tight security Rahul Gandhi has around him? How did Kuldip imagine his shoe was going to hit the Gandhi heir apparent pentrating that complex security web? Sharad Pawar’s attacker was mentally unstable. What about Kuldip? Was he under the influence of any substance that gave him the courage to hurl a shoe at Rahul Gandhi?

The way high profile people come under attack from common men is so unconvincing that it evokes laughter and conspiracy theories in equal measures. Nobody knows from where those attackers come from, on what grounds they choose their victims and what happens to them once the police takes them in custody after they receive good thrashing from the supporters of their victims. When the dust settles down, the unknown faces of the attackers forever disappear without a trace. Are there no news channels who would like to interview them? Barkha are you hearing?

As security personnel and Congress supporters grabbed the youth, Rahul was heard saying "don't hit him". The Congress leader also said that people perhaps thought he would run away if shoes were hurled at him. "....throw one more shoe," Rahul said. The shoe fell 10 meters short of the Congress general secretary and the attacker, identified as Kuldip, was immediately taken into custody.