In response to his disqualification as a Lok Sabha member, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Friday that he is fighting to restore the country’s voice and will pay any price to do so.
“I am fighting for the voice of India and am ready to pay any price (for it),” Gandhi tweeted in Hindi. His tweet followed his disqualification as a Lok Sabha MP earlier on Friday. The disqualification came in the wake of Rahul’s conviction by a Surat court in a 2019 defamation case on Thursday.
Following his conviction for using the surname ‘Modi’ during a campaign event for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka, the disqualified Congress MP was sentenced to two years in prison.
However, the court later approved his bail on a surety of Rs 15,000, suspending his sentence for 30 days so that he could appeal his conviction to a higher court.
Meanwhile, the Congress attacked the government on Friday for disqualifying Rahul as a Lok Sabha member, calling it a “strangulation of democracy” and expressing confidence that the disqualification will be reversed through a stay on his conviction by a higher court.
The party claimed Rahul’s disqualification was part of a “pattern” to prevent him from speaking out against the Central government, as well as an attempt to divert public attention away from real issues.
Congress national spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi and senior leader Jairam Ramesh lashed out at the Centre during a press conference at the party headquarters in the national capital.
“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 was 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.
On the severe criticism by the BJP following Rahul Gandhi’s remarks on Indian democracy in the UK recently, Singhvi said the Congress leader is not entitled to speak freely on grounds of “fake and imaginary nationalism”.
“Rahul Gandhi goes abroad, he is not entitled to speak freely on grounds of fake nationalism, created imaginary nationalism. He comes back and his speeches abroad become the basis of action against him inside Parliament. All of this is part of a pattern to stop him (from speaking out against this government), to divert public attention from the real and burning issues before the nation today. It is also intended to create a fear psychosis among those who dare to question this government,” he said.
Singhvi said Rahul will emerge victorious in the higher court in the defamation case.
“We are confident that we will get a stay on his conviction, which will, in turn, remove the very basis of this disqualification. We have full faith in the law. We believe we will emerge victorious in the near future,” he said.
