Indian court sentences Rahul Gandhi to two years in jail for Modi comment

AHMEDABAD, India, March 23 (Reuters) – An Indian court on Thursday sentenced opposition leader Rahul Gandhi to two years in prison on defamation charges for a 2019 speech in which he referred to the thieves with the surname Modi.

Gandhi will appeal the order in a higher court, but it is potentially a major blow to his Congress party ahead of the 2024 general election. The ruling was handed down by a court in the city of Surat, located in Gujarat, the prime minister’s home state. Minister Narendra Modi.

Gandhi, the 52-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty, was present at the Surat court, which released him immediately on bail 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 disqualification from the legislature following the conviction, according to a 2013 order from the country’s highest court.

Any disqualification of Gandhi, a former speaker of the Congress and its main activist, could complicate the party’s chances in the upcoming general election, where the BJP is expected to win a third consecutive term.

“The court found Rahul Gandhi’s comment defamatory,” said Ketan Reshamwala, a lawyer for whistleblower Purnesh Modi, a Gujarat lawmaker from the prime minister’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He has been sentenced to two years in prison.

In the speech before the last general election in 2019, Gandhi referred to the prime minister and two fugitive Indian businessmen, all surnamed Modi, while discussing alleged high-level corruption in the country.

On Thursday, Gandhi told the court that his comment was not against any community.

Gandhi’s party said the case against him was brought by a “cowardly and dictatorial” BJP government because it was “exposing its dark deeds”.

“The Modi government is a victim of political bankruptcy,” Congress Speaker Mallikarjun Kharge said on Twitter. “We will appeal to the higher court.”

Congress spokesman Supriya Shrinate said the party had “all legal resources available to us and we will use them.”

“Hopefully, the law of the land will prevail,” he said.

Gandhi won the support of the Delhi-ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and two of whose top leaders are in jail on what they call trumped-up charges.

“A conspiracy is being hatched to remove non-BJP leaders and parties by prosecuting them,” AAP chief and Delhi Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote on Twitter.

“We have differences with Congress, but it is not right to implicate Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case like this. It is the job of the public and the opposition to ask questions. We respect the court but we do not agree with the decision.”

Gandhi’s once-dominant Congress controls less than 10% of the elected seats in the lower house of parliament and lost heavily to the BJP in the last two general elections.

Modi remains India’s most popular politician by a substantial margin and is expected to score a third victory in next year’s elections.

Reporting by Sumit Khanna in Ahmedabad, Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai and Arpan Chaturvedi in New Delhi; Edited by Raju Gopalakrishnan, William Maclean

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