Westmeadows , March 7: AAM AADMI Party (AAP) MP Bhagwant Maan allegedly faced protest at a public meeting here on Tuesday when Melbourne based Pappa Sarpanch asked him to explain why he visited a religious place under the influence of alcohol.

Maan was addressing an AAP dinner event at Ajooba restaurant in Melbourne organized in his honour.

Ashutosh Joshi, AAP candidate from Rajpura in the last Punjab elections, was also in attendance. Joshi is an alumni of RMIT where he was a student doing his Masters in Information & Technology.

According to Sarpanch, he stormed the stage and hit Maan with his shoe twice before he was overpowered by the latter’s supporters.

AAP, however, has denied any such incident.

AAP Media Convenor in Australia, Rajveer Singh opened the evening elucidating Bhagwant Maan’s contributions as a Campaign Chairman in recently held Punjab elections. He also In addition he spoke about the AAP Australia’s structure and volunteers’ effort in raising financial contribution of $60,000 in Jan 2017.

Ashutosh Joshi in his address spoke about the achievements and constant effort of the AAP government in making Delhi a better place and the promise to reform and make Punjab a happy and prosperous again.

Dinner event
Dinner event in MelbourneBhagwant Maan allegedly faced NRI ire

Then it was star attraction Bhagwant Maan.

In his speech, Maan touched on his journey from being a comedian-poet to taking up an active role for the country as Member of Parliament.

He mentioned how he was able to best utilise his poetic abilities to put forward the problems of Punjab in couplets to garner society’s attention.

But all did not go well for the visiting MP.

As Maan criticized the Badals with his popular parody Kikli, Sarpanch allegedly got up from his seat in the audience and asked him why he went drunk to the bhog of Behbal Kalan firing victims.

In a video shot by Sarpanch himself, several Mann supporters are heard asking him why he threw a shoe at him as the commotion prevails. But no shoe has been captured by the video grab.

Sarpanch told The Indian Express that he kept his iPhone 6, with its camera lens facing Mann, in the upper pocket of his kurta. But, when he got up to hit Mann, the camera failed to capture the incident.

He alleged AAP was live streaming Mann’s show but when the incident took place, they allegedly took it off.

Maan was not available for comment.

According to the Indian Express report, Pappa said he was angry at Mann for criticizing everyone. “He hits out at Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal who is a noble soul.

He also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi. That made me angry. He has taken politics to a new low. Why is he making a mockery of politics? It is a serious business. He should behave like a leader,” he said.

But the video on Youtube, Pappa Sarpanch claims that he was angry with Mann because he went to Guru Ka Ghar while intoxicated.

Ramakrishna VenuGopal