Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi did not have realised the fact that he is involuntarily bequeathing a great weapon to all those unsatisfied and upset souls, who wish to protest against something they are not happy about, simply hurl a shoe at the elocutionist.

The practice was started by Zaidi during an Iraqi press conference on December 14, 2008, when he threw both of his shoes at then-United States President George W. Bush.

Since then, there have been many other shoeing incidents on a national and international scale. Political leaders including Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi, Parvez Musharraf, Jitanram Manjhi and P Chidambaram have been venerated with shoe at various public gatherings.

The practice is in trend these days as media reports have come up with a similar incident in which a 52 years old man, identified as Maheshwari Prajapati, threw his shoe at BSP MLA Gaya Charan Dinkar in a public gathering.

Please note that the hurling shoe might seem fascinating to some but its reverberations can be lethal as Mr Maheshwari is still in the hospital in unconscious state. His condition got ciritical after he was beaten up ruthlessly by BSP party members present at the Bhaichara Sammelan where Gaya Charan addressing a gathering and allegedly critisizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetisation.

Prajapati hurled a shoe at Dinkar, who is the MLA from Naraini constituency of Banda, soon after he addressed the gathering. Dinkar ended his speech saying that "the common man is struggling with demonetisation… Farmers are making a beeline at tehsil offices while labourers are losing their jobs." Soon after, Mr Prajapati threw the shoe on him.

"BSP workers immediately pounced upon Prajapati and beat him up before the policemen present at the venue could rescue him. But he had sustained serious injuries by then… He is yet to regain consciousness at the hospital," SSP Shreepati Mishra said.

Meanwhile, Dinkar's family is claiming that he is a BSP supporter and he was upset he was not allowed to address the gathering for two minutes as he had requested. While BSP district president Pradeep Verma alleged Prajapati to be a SP member.