In a major development, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi was disqualified from Lok Sabha on Friday, a day after he was convicted by a Surat court in a 2019 criminal defamation case.
Announcing his disqualification, the Lok Sabha Secretariat in a notification said that it was effective from 23 March, the day of his conviction.
“Consequent upon his conviction by the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Surat…Rahul Gandhi, Member of Lok Sabha representing the Wayanad Parliamentary Constituency of Kerala stands disqualified from the membership of Lok Sabha from the date of his conviction i.e. 23 March, 2023,” the notification read.
The court in Surat sentenced on Thursday Rahul Gandhi to two years in jail in a defamation case, filed on a complaint by BJP MLA Purnesh Modi for his alleged remark, “How come all thieves have Modi as the common surname?”
Following his disqualification, Rahul Gandhi would not be able to contest elections for eight years unless a higher court stays his conviction and sentence.
Congress and Opposition rallied behind the disqualified leader. The Congress’ top brass, including party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and former AICC chief Sonia Gandhi, met to deliberate on the party’s strategy going forward.
Besides Kharge and Sonia Gandhi, Congress general secretaries Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, K C Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Rajiv Shukla and Tariq Anwar, senior leaders P Chidambaram, Anand Sharma, Ambika Soni, Mukul Wasnik, Salman Khurshid and Pawan Kumar Bansal, among others, were also present at the meeting.
Sources said Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification and party’s strategy and plans for agitations were top of the agenda at the meeting.
Reacting to Gandhi’s disqualification, the Congress said it will fight the battle both “legally and politically”.
Coming down heavily at the Centre, calling it a “strangulation of democracy” while exuding confidence that the disqualification will be revoked through a stay on his conviction by a higher court.
The party alleged that Rahul’s disqualification is part of a “pattern” to stop him from speaking out against the Central government and also an attempt to divert public attention from real issues.
Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters in the national capital, Congress national spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi and senior leader Jairam Ramesh lashed out at the Centre over the disqualification of the former national party president.
“The issue before us is political, more than it is legal. It is a political issue because it signifies the systematic, repetitive emasculation of democratic institutions by the ruling party. It signifies the strangulation of democracy itself. We know that defamation is an exception to free speech, but over the last several years, we have had repeated examples of unthinkable assaults on freedom of speech, more importantly, freedom after speech. We all know that Rahul Gandhi has been speaking fearlessly inside and outside Parliament. He is paying a price for it,” Singhvi said.
He said that the government is resorting to new methods to “throttle” Rahul Gandhi’s voice.
“This government is rattled because he clearly speaks with facts and figures on demonetisation. Be it the supposed clean chit to China, or the GST, he is consistently aggressive and open in his questioning. Therefore this government is finding new techniques of throttling his voice,” Singhvi alleged.
Leaders of almost all opposition parties rallied around Rahul Gandhi, after he was disqualified from the Lok Sabha following his conviction by a Gujarat court, and accused the BJP of doing “vindictive politics.”
The Congress said it will fight the battle legally and politically for its former president. It was supported in its protest by parties such as TMC, AAP, Samajwadi Party, DMK, and BRS, which had earlier said they would maintain equal distance from both the BJP and the Congress.
