Jarnail Singh (1973 – 14 May 2021) was an Indian journalist and politician belonging to the

Aam Aadmi Party The Aam Aadmi Party (; AAP) is a political party in India, as one of the national political parties. The AAP was founded in November 2012 by Arvind Kejriwal and his then-companions following the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement, popular ...

(AAP). He was a member of the

Delhi Legislative Assembly The Delhi Legislative Assembly, also known as the Delhi Vidhan Sabha, is a unicameral legislature of the union territory of Delhi in India. Delhi Legislative Assembly is the legislative arm of the Government of Delhi. At present, it consists o ...

, representing the

Rajouri Garden Rajouri Garden is a market and residential neighbourhood in West Delhi, India. The Main Market and Nehru Market are the key markets of the area. The population is largely Punjabi who migrated to Delhi, following the Partition of India, from Paki ...

constituency until 6 January 2017, when he resigned as MLA to compete for the AAP against sitting CM

Parkash Singh Badal Parkash Singh Badal ( pa, ਪ੍ਰਕਾਸ਼ ਸਿੰਘ ਬਾਦਲ; born 8 December 1927) is an Indian politician who was Chief Minister of Punjab state from 1970 to 1971, from 1977 to 1980, from 1997 to 2002, and from 2007 to 2017. He i ...

Education and journalism career

Jarnail Singh obtained a diploma in journalism from the YMCA Institute for Media Studies and Information Technology. He started his career as a reporter for ''

Amar Ujala ''Amar Ujala'' is a Hindi-language daily newspaper published in India which was founded in 1948. It has 21 editions in six states and two union territories covering 180 districts. It has a circulation of around two million copies. The 2017 Ind ...

''. He then worked as a correspondent with the Hindi-language daily ''

Dainik Jagran ''Dainik Jagran'' ( Hi:दैनिक जागरन , , ) is an Indian Hindi language daily newspaper. It was ranked 5th in the world and 2nd in India by circulation in 2016. In 2019 Quarter 4, according to Indian Readership Survey, Daini ...

'' for over a decade.Jarnail Singh: Profile of a shoe thrower
/ref> Singh gained media attention when he threw a shoe at India's Home Minister

P. Chidambaram Palaniappan Chidambaram (born 16 September 1945), better known as P. Chidambaram, is an Indian politician and lawyer who currently serves as Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha. He served as the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee ...

during a press conference on 7 April 2009. Singh was upset that the minister's party, the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

, had given poll tickets to leaders who had been accused of instigating the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. The leaders had been "cleared" of any involvement by the

Central Bureau of Investigation The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the premier investigating agency of India. It operates under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. Originally set up to investigate bribery and governmen ...

(CBI) when the Congress government was in power. Responding to Jarnail Singh's question, Chidambaram stated that the CBI had not acted under government pressure, and had only submitted its reports to the court and that it was up to the courts to make a decision. Singh was not satisfied with the answer and threw a shoe at the minister in protest. Singh later stated:

I admit my method was wrong, but the sentiment was right. I do not wish that any journalist should behave in this manner.

Chidambaram did not press charges against him.

Political career

Jarnail Singh contested the 2014 general elections as an AAP candidate from

West Delhi West Delhi is one of the 11 administrative districts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi in India. Administratively, the district is divided into three subdivisions, Patel Nagar, Rajouri Garden and Punjabi Bagh. West Delhi is bound by th ...

. He lost to

Pravesh Verma Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma (born 7 November 1977) is an Indian politician and a Member of parliament (MP) from West Delhi Lok Sabha constituency. As a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he is serving his second term as an MP for West D ...

BJP The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

by a margin of 268,586 votes. In 2015 Delhi Assembly elections, he won from the Rajouri Garden constituency. He is sometimes confused with Jarnail Singh, an AAP MLA from Tilak Nagar in Delhi. Singh died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

in 2021.

References

External links

Profile on AAP website
2021 deaths Aam Aadmi Party candidates in the 2014 Indian general election Indian newspaper journalists Indian Sikhs Delhi MLAs 2015–2020 Aam Aadmi Party politicians from Delhi 1973 births Journalists from Delhi Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in India {{AAP-politician-stub