After being convicted in a 2019 defamation case, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been disqualified from Parliament and sentenced to two years in prison. He plans to challenge the conviction and sentencing in the Surat sessions court tomorrow, asking the court to set aside the Magistrate’s order and grant an interim stay on the conviction until the matter is resolved. Gandhi was granted bail and his sentence was suspended for 30 days to allow him to appeal, but it was quickly suspended by the Lok Sabha secretariat. Unless a higher court puts his conviction on hold, the Election Commission will announce a special election for the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, and Gandhi will be barred from contesting elections for the next eight years.
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During a rally in Karnataka before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Gandhi made a statement which led to the defamation case filed against him by BJP MLA Purnesh Modi. The statement made by Rahul Gandhi during a rally in Karnataka ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections was, “How come all thieves have the common surname Modi?”
According to Gandhi’s legal representative, the judicial proceedings were defective from the outset, and the complainant in the case should have been PM Modi, not MLA Purnesh Modi, since Gandhi’s speech’s primary target was the PM.
After his disqualification, Gandhi was asked to vacate his official Delhi bungalow, with the Congress calling the move a ‘conspiracy’ to ‘silence’ him as he was asking tough questions in Parliament about PM Modi’s alleged closeness with industrialist Gautam Adani.
The BJP deemed the action legitimate and raised doubts about Gandhi’s regard for the law. Critics of Gandhi called his remark an intentional insult to the entire OBC community. Union Home Minister Amit Shah dismissed the criticism, stating that Gandhi should take his case to a higher court.
