AHMEDABAD, India, March 23 (Portal) – An Indian court on Thursday sentenced opposition leader Rahul Gandhi to two years in prison for defamation for a 2019 speech in which he referred to thieves by the surname Modi.
Gandhi will appeal the order in a higher court, but it may deal a major blow to his Congress party ahead of the 2024 general election. The verdict was handed down by a court in the city of Surat in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat.
Gandhi, the 52-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, was present at the Surat court, which immediately bailed him and suspended his sentence for a month.
A federal government adviser, Kanchan Gupta, said Gandhi, a member of the lower house of parliament, could face immediate dismissal from the legislature after being convicted, according to a 2013 decision by the country’s highest court.
Any disqualification for Gandhi, a former Congress President and his star campaigner, could hurt the party’s chances in the next general election, where the BJP is widely expected to win a third straight term.
“The court has found that Rahul Gandhi’s comment is defamatory,” said Ketan Reshamwala, a lawyer for complainant Purnesh Modi, a Gujarat lawmaker from the prime minister’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “He was sentenced to two years in prison.”
Speaking ahead of the last general election in 2019, Gandhi referred to the prime minister and two fugitive Indian businessmen, surnamed Modi, while discussing alleged high-level corruption in the country.
On Thursday, Gandhi told the court his comment was not anti-community.
Gandhi’s party said the case against him was brought by a “cowardly and dictatorial” BJP government for “exposing their dark deeds”.
“The Modi government is a victim of political bankruptcy,” Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said on Twitter. “We will appeal to the higher court.”
Congress spokesman Supriya Shrinate said the party has “every legal remedy at our disposal and we will use it.”
“Hopefully the law of the country will prevail,” she said.
Gandhi gained support from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which governs Delhi and has two of its leaders in prison on fabricated charges.
“A conspiracy is being hatched to eliminate non-BJP leaders and parties through prosecution,” AAP chief and Delhi Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote on Twitter.
“We have disagreements with Congress, but it is not right to implicate Rahul Gandhi in a libel case like this. It is the job of the public and the opposition to ask questions. We respect the court but disagree with the decision.”
Gandhi’s once-dominant Congress controls less than 10% of the elected seats in the lower house of parliament and has lost out to the BJP in the last two general elections.
Modi remains by far India’s most popular politician and is widely expected to claim a third victory in next year’s election.
Reporting by Sumit Khanna in Ahmedabad, Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai and Arpan Chaturvedi in New Delhi; Edited by Raju Gopalakrishnan, William Maclean
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.