The Madhya Pradesh assembly election has concluded, but few incidents related to the polls have emerged on social media that are bound to amaze everybody. A video of the Congress candidate from Ratlam, Paras Saklecha, has gone viral on the internet in which he can be seen taking slipper slaps doled out by a fakir.
Saklecha, who had contested the 2013 and 2018 Madhya Pradesh assembly election and lost, visited the fakir on Thursday with a pair of new slippers to seek his blessing.
"In the Video, @INCIndia MLC Candidate from MP, Paras saklecha is seen handing slippers to an elderly Kamal Raza (fakir baba) asking to be beaten (blessing)," reads the caption of the video shared on microblogging site X, formerly Twitter, by @amitrakshitbjp.
In the clip, the fakir, who lives at a dargah on Mhow road can be see hitting the former legislator on the head and then cheeks multiple times, while Saklecha maintains his calm with a smile on his face.
Many people visit the fakir, affectionately called by locals as ‘Abba’, who smacks them with footwear for "good luck' as believed by the locals. People normally offer lungis and footwear to the ascetic, who accepts them from a few and throws away the rest.
After being smacked by the ascetic with slippers, Saklecha was heard saying, “The fakir baba has warded off evil shadows if any upon me.” The Congress nominee is pitted against BJP's Chetan Kashyap this time.
Saklecha had fought the 2018 assembly elections in the state as an independent candidate and won defeating the then home minister Himmat Kothari. But, he lost to Kashyap in the 2013 and 2018 polls, reported PTI.