On Thursday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was sentenced to two years in prison in a 2019 criminal defamation case for his remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname, by a court in Gujarat’s Surat. The case was filed against Mr Gandhi by BJP MLA and former Gujarat minister Purnesh Modi for saying “How come all thieves have the common surname Modi?” while addressing a rally at Kolar in Karnataka before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
However, Mr Gandhi was granted bail, and his sentence was suspended for 30 days to allow him to appeal the decision. Mr Gandhi arrived in Surat earlier in the day for the verdict and was received by top leaders of the Congress’s Gujarat unit. Supporters and party members turned out in various spots in the city to show their strength and support for Mr Gandhi.
The court of Chief Judicial Magistrate HH Varma had concluded hearing final arguments from both sides last week and was ready to pronounce its judgment in the four-year-old defamation case. Mr Gandhi’s lawyer argued that the court proceedings were flawed from the beginning and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have been the complainant in the case, as he was the main target of Gandhi’s speech.
Senior Congress leader and MLA Arjun Modhwadia expressed confidence that Mr Gandhi would emerge victorious from all these false cases, stating that truth alone prevails. Purnesh Modi, the complainant in the case, was a minister in the first tenure of the Bhupendra Patel government and was re-elected from the Surat West Assembly seat in the December elections.
Regenerate response