VADODARA: Within hours of his victory in a closely fought battle with BJP's sitting MLA Dinesh Patel,
Congress candidate Jashpalsinh Thakor fired a shot from an air-gun in in Padra. The incident occurred on Monday when the
victory rally of Thakor reached Padra. Thakor's supporters picked him up on their shoulders. Another
party leader Chaitanyasinh Jhala, who had recently quit BJP to join Congress, too joined the celebrations.
According to the police, someone gave an air-gun to Jhala who lifted it in air and fired a shot. Jhala then handed over the gun to Thakor who too fired a shot in air. The incident was video-graphed on a mobile phone by some supporter and it later went viral. "We got information about the video following which we began investigations in the case. It was an air-gun and it doesn't come under the Arms Act," said D M Vyas, Padra police inspector.
"Jhala is a lawyer so he knows the laws. He said that their supporters were very happy over the win and hence he fired a shot from the air-gun. Such guns are usually used to burst balloons in fairs," Vyas said.
"We also called Bhavik Makwana who owns the air-gun. He told us that he kept it to shoo away monkeys from his farm," Vyas added. Statement of everyone involved in the incident have been recorded but no FIR has been filed as there was no complaint, said Vyas.
Thakore polled 92,998 votes and beat Patel by a margin of 19,027 votes. The police had booked him and arrested him. Srivastava was acquitted by a local court in 2009.
