Rahul Gandhi Sentenced to Jail
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Congress Party, the main opposition party in India, was sentenced to two years in prison in a criminal defamation case by a local court.
At an election rally in 2019, Gandhi said, “Why do all these thieves have Modi as their surname? Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi.”
Nirav Modi is a diamond tycoon and fugitive; Lalit Modi, once chief of Indian Premier League cricket, has been banned for life by the country’s cricket board; and Narendra Modi is prime minister of the country.
Gandhi said he was simply trying to draw attention to corruption. He will appeal the decision. A spokesperson for his party called the decision “legally unsustainable.”
The case against him was filed based on a complaint by one Purnesh Modi, who said it defamed the Modi community, and who, like Narendra Modi, is a BJP lawmaker.
Ravinder Kaur, an associate professor of modern South Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen, noted to Foreign Policy that the court, in sentencing him to two years in prison, was effectively rendering him ineligible from parliament if the decision is upheld, since a person who has served two years cannot serve in parliament under Indian law.
But Kaur, author of Brand New Nation, also argues there was a political context.
“Supporters of BJP, they often say, Rahul Gandhi is the biggest vote earner for BJP,” she said, explaining that the opposition leader often says or does counterproductive things. It’s not immediately clear that, even if Gandhi were to be ineligible to run, that his disqualification would necessarily be positive for the ruling party. Nor is it clear that the Congress party will be able to use this incident to build support or awaken voters to threats to democracy and civil society.
Shashi Tharoor—a Congress party politician and former high-ranking U.N. official—put it more bluntly: “This is politics with the gloves off and it bodes ill for our democracy.”