Ahmedabad, India A court in western India on Thursday found opposition leader Rahul Gandhi guilty of defamation and sentenced him to two years in prison for a speech he made in 2019 in which he referred to thieves with the surname Modi.
Gandhi was present at the court in Surat, a city in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He was released on bail and his sentence was suspended for 30 days.
The criminal case for defamation was brought against Gandhi by a leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after a speech during the 2019 general election in which he referred to the Modi surname and asked how all thieves had the surname.
“The court has found Rahul Gandhi’s comment to be defamatory. The court found him guilty under IPC Section 499 read 500. He was sentenced to two years in prison,” said Ketan Reshamwala, lawyer for applicant Purnesh Modi.
Gandhi said in court he made the comment to highlight corruption and not against a community.
Gandhi is one of the country’s key opposition leaders, who will face Modi as he seeks his third term as prime minister in 2024.
Gandhi’s once-dominant Congress controls less than 10% of the elected seats in the lower house of parliament and has lost to the BJP in two consecutive general elections, most recently in 2019.
Modi remains by far India’s most popular politician and is widely expected to claim a third victory in the next general election in 2024.