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The Pulse | Politics | South Asia
Had the court docket stayed the conviction, Gandhi would have been reinstated in parliament.
An Indian court docket on Thursday dismissed opposition chief Rahul Gandhi’s plea to remain his conviction in a prison defamation case that resulted in his expulsion from Parliament.
Gandhi, a fierce critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his fundamental challenger in 2024 polls, was ousted after a court docket final month sentenced him to 2 years in jail for defamation for mocking Modi’s surname in a 2019 election speech.
A court docket in Modi’s house state of Gujarat suspended the jail sentence earlier in April in the course of the enchantment course of.
A person who shares the prime minister’s surname, which is frequent in Gujarat, accused Gandhi of defamation over the speech wherein he requested, “Why do all thieves have Modi as their surname?” Gandhi then referred to 3 well-known and unrelated Modis within the speech: a fugitive Indian diamond tycoon, a cricket government banned from the Indian Premier League, and the prime minister.
The petitioner who filed the case is a member of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Get together in Gujarat however is just not associated to the prime minister or the opposite two Modis talked about by Gandhi.
Choose R P Mogera, who rejected the plea, mentioned Gandhi ought to have been “extra cautious together with his phrases” since he was a member of Parliament and the top of the opposition Congress get together when he made the feedback, the Press Belief of India information company reported.
A keep of Gandhi’s conviction would have opened up a path to reinstate his parliamentary seat. However he can nonetheless search to remain the conviction in a better court docket.
Gandhi will quickly problem the court docket’s choice in a better court docket, get together spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi informed reporters. “We’re assured that superior courts … will set proper these authorized errors,” he mentioned.
Beneath Indian legislation, a prison conviction and jail sentence of two years or extra are grounds for expulsion from Parliament. Gandhi was instantly disqualified after the ruling in March, dealing an enormous blow to the Congress get together forward of normal elections subsequent 12 months.
Gandhi dangers shedding his eligibility to run in elections for the subsequent eight years if a court docket doesn’t overturn his conviction and two-year sentence.
The prosecution of Gandhi, the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister and scion of the dynastic Congress get together, was broadly condemned by opponents of Modi as the newest assault in opposition to democracy and free speech by a authorities looking for to crush dissent. The pace of his removing from Parliament shocked Indian politics.
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