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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was recently convicted and sentenced to a 2-year imprisonment term in a criminal defamation case that dates back to 2019. The charges were related to his comments on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname, which was considered offensive by a court in Gujarat’s Surat. However, Mr. Gandhi has been granted bail, and his sentence has been temporarily suspended for 30 days to allow him to appeal the decision.
The case was initiated against Mr. Gandhi by former Gujarat minister and BJP MLA Purnesh Modi. The complaint pertained to Rahul Gandhi’s statement, “How come all thieves have the common surname, Modi?” This statement was made at a rally in Kolar, Karnataka, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, where he criticized PM Modi for sharing his last name with fugitive businessmen Lalit Modi and Nirav Modi.
Mr. Gandhi arrived in Surat earlier on Thursday to hear the verdict and was welcomed by top leaders of the Congress’s Gujarat unit. Supporters and party members gathered at different locations in the city to show their support for Mr. Gandhi. They held posters praising him as the “Lion of India” and placards declaring that the “Congress will not bow before the dictatorship of the BJP.”
Last week, the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate HH Varma heard final arguments from both sides and stated that it was ready to deliver its verdict in the four-year-old defamation case, as confirmed by Mr. Gandhi’s lawyer Kirit Panwala.
Senior Congress leader and MLA Arjun Modhwadia expressed confidence in Mr. Gandhi’s innocence and stated, “Truth is put to test and is harassed, but truth alone prevails. Despite numerous false cases being filed against Gandhi, he will ultimately triumph over them. We will get justice.”
The last time Mr. Gandhi gave his statement before the Surat court was in October of 2021. Purnesh Modi, the complainant, alleged that Mr. Gandhi’s speech defamed the entire Modi community during the 2019 poll rally.
Purnesh Modi 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.
Mr. Gandhi’s lawyer has argued that the court proceedings were flawed from the outset. The lawyer has also claimed that the main target of Mr. Gandhi’s speech was Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and he should have been the complainant in the case rather than MLA Purnesh Modi.
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