Lucknow, Feb. 18: Sonia Gandhi’s security suffered a scare today when a man with a pistol and a grudge from a “previous life” tried to enter the venue of her rally in Almora, Uttarakhand.

The target of Kedar Singh, who appeared mentally challenged, seemed to be a friend who had “betrayed” him rather than the Congress president, believed to be facing a militant threat.

Sonia had not yet arrived for the election meeting when the metal detector set off an alarm around 11.30 am. Singh, described by police as a post office worker in his early forties, was arrested immediately.

“This man was caught with a country-made pistol with two live cartridges,” Almora special superintendent of police Satish Kumar Shukla said.

“He told us a friend had betrayed him and that he had been looking for him since his previous life,” an officer later said.

Sonia arrived around noon. There was no trouble at the rally which went on till 1.30 pm, when she left for Dehra Dun to address another campaign meeting for the February 21 Uttarakhand polls.

The United Progressive Alliance chairperson’s security has been tightened since intelligence agencies warned three months ago that she could be the target of a suicide attack by Pakistan-based militants, including al Qaida.

Sonia is expected to be the Congress’s star campaigner in Uttarakhand and Manipur, which also goes to the polls this month.

SSP Shukla said Singh had claimed he lived in the Bagheswar area. “We are verifying his antecedents in Bagheswar,” he added.

“He doesn’t seem to be in control of himself. We are trying to verify his statements. He may have been upset about something,” an officer said, adding that Singh could be sent for a lie-detector test.

“He has been charged under the Arms Act,” Shukla said. “We are trying to find out if he belonged to any organisation or group or gang. However, when we arrested him, he offered no resistance.”

In October 2005, a group of BJP leaders had come under attack from a mentally troubled gunman at an Assembly election rally in Bihar’s Nokha.

The man had jumped onto the dais with a pistol in each hand and fired a shot that grazed former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s left arm. He was overpowered by the crowd.