Supporters wearing masks depicting Rahul Gandhi at the Congress party’s headquarters in New Delhi [File: Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters]
Metropolis Desk-
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, can now run in the upcoming national elections after the Supreme Court of India delayed his conviction in a defamation case.
Rahul was found guilty in March in a case brought by Purnesh Modi, a lawmaker from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who represents Gujarat in the West. In 2019, Modi made remarks in which he questioned why “all thieves have Modi as [their] common surname.” Gandhi was found guilty in this case.
A fugitive Indian diamond mogul, a cricket executive barred from the Indian Premier League (IPL), and the prime minister were the three well-known but unconnected Modis that Gandhi had mentioned earlier in the address.
The BJP legislator as well as other Modi-named individuals, including the prime himself, took offense to the comments. The surname is connected to lower castes in Indian society.
Gandhi, 53, who comes from a family that has produced three prime ministers for India, was handed a two-year prison term, but it was suspended and he was released on bail.
As a result of the conviction, he was also stripped of his parliamentary position because politicians who receive sentences of two years or more are immediately prohibited from holding office.
Gandhi appealed to the Supreme Court after his requests for the conviction to be suspended were denied by lower courts and the high court of Gujarat, where the BJP is in power and where Gandhi is from, and where Modi was born.
The lower court that gave Gandhi the maximum term of two years in prison and disqualified him from serving in parliament by doing so, according to Supreme Court Justice B R Gavai, did not provide any justifications for doing so.
Gavai, who presided over a panel of three judges that suspended the conviction, claimed that while Gandhi “ought to have been more careful while making public speeches” and that his remarks were “not in good taste,” the conviction also punished the constituents who had chosen him to represent them.
Gandhi claimed that his statement was made “in the course of democratic political activity” in a 731-page filing to the Supreme Court.
According to the statement, his sentencing was “gravely detrimental to democratic free speech.”
There was no immediate response to Gandhi’s directive, but Congress members erupted in celebration, yelled slogans, and handed out candy at the party’s headquarters in New Delhi.
Gandhi’s reinstatement would be requested in a letter to the speaker of the lower house of parliament that Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the head of the Congress, said he would send on Friday.
Rahul Gandhi has been absolved of the bogus accusations leveled against him, Chowdhury informed the press. “This is the triumph of truth…Modi will pay dearly for it.
The BJP of Modi did not respond right away to the court decision.
Source- Al Jazeera
