Deoria (Uttar Pradesh), May 17 (IANS): Pamphlets with headlines "Helmet ki karo taiyyari, aa gaye joota dhari" are being circulated in the Deoria Lok Sabha seat with an appeal to Thakurs to vote against BJP candidate Ramapati Ram Tripathi.

The reference is to the incident which took place in March in which the outgoing BJP MP from Sant Kabir Nagar, Sharad Tripathi, beat the local BJP MLA Rakesh Singh with shoes at an official meeting. The MP hit the MLA 13 times with a shoe in one minute.

The incident sparked outrage among Thakurs and deepened the Thakur-Brahmin rift in the region.

Though the BJP denied ticket to Sharad Tripathi from Sant Kabir Nagar, the party has given the ticket to his father Ramapati Ram Tripathi from Deoria.

The pamphlet further appeals to 'descendents of Maharana Pratap' (Thakurs) to vote against the 'father of Joota Baba' and avenge the humiliation that the BJP MLA had suffered during the incident.