Lok Sabha ticket, job offer for shoe throwing scribe

Chandigarh, April 7 (IANS) Iraqi journalist Montadher al-Zaidi, who is biding time in a prison after his shoe-throwing action on then US President George W. Bush last year, is not going to like it.

The main protagonist of the Indian version of his act, journalist Jarnail Singh who hurled a shoe at Home Minister P. Chidambaram in New Delhi Tuesday, has not only been released but is getting attractive offers.

The Akali Dal (Amritsar) led by radical leader and former IPS officer Simranjit Singh Mann has offered a Lok Sabha ticket to Jarnail Singh.

Mann has offered to give his party's ticket for the Amritsar seat, from where cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu is seeking re-election on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket.

'Jarnail has done a big act of bravery. We all Sikhs take pride in what he did to highlight the injustice against Sikhs. He is a warrior of the community,' Mann said.

The Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), the mini-parliament of Sikh religious affairs, has offered to give a job to Jarnail Singh if his employer (Hindi newspaper Dainik Jagran) fires him from his present job after his action.

Jarnail Singh's employers, in a press statement, have already said disciplinary action was being initiated against him.

The cash-rich SGPC, which has an annual budget of Rs.4.48 billion (448 crore), also offered to take care of Jarnail Singh and his family.

The Delhi unit of the Akali Dal has already announced a reward of Rs.200,000 to the shoe-throwing scribe.