Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was shot at during an election rally in Nokha village, near Sasaram, in western Bihar, on Thursday afternoon.

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The attack happened when Prasad and BJP leader Pramod Mahajan were on the dais, about to address the rally.

This is what Mahajan had to say about the incident:

"The security situation in this election is worse than ever. I travel around the nation all the time, but nothing is as insecure as this. I am not a big leader, but I am not too small a leader either. I can say that I haven't seen any security during my travels. Today's experience was scary. I didn't see any policemen.

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"I don't think naxalites were behind this incident. It doesn't look like it. Imagine, this guy came up to the dais and waited in front of a 10,000-strong crowd to hit us. It was nothing less than a suicidal attempt. He was not in the crowd, but on the dais. This indicates that he was not a naxalite. It scares me to think that I was an easy target. That bullet could have hit me too.

"As he fired his gun, we saw Raviji bleeding. I had two worries. I had to help Raviji and rush him to the hospital. I was also pleading with the crowd, 'maaro mat!' (do not kill him). I just don't understand this 16th century method of  punishing a culprit. I wanted to save his life, but my attention was divided. As we were in Bihar, I suspected he might be lynched. We tried to save his life because only then would we know why he committed the crime. We want to know the facts. Dead men can't speak, so we wanted him to live to know his side of the story.

"Anyway, we will carry on our campaign and I will be as carefree as before."