Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday stood formally notified as a disqualified Member of Parliament from Kerala’s Wayanad segment with Lok Sabha secretariat issuing a notification to this effect.
By law Gandhi faced instant disqualification the moment he stood convicted by a Surat Court yesterday in a 2019 defamation case over his comments “How come all thieves have Modi surname?”
The Congress vowed to fight the battle legally and politically with party chief Mallikarjun Kharge set to meet all state presidents today to finalise an outreach campaign about “victimisation of Gandhi and vendetta politics to silence his questioning of the alleged PM Narendra Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani links.”
The LS secretariat has also forwarded the notification to the Election Commission to declare the Wayanad seat vacant and issue a poll notification. The Congress plans to move the sessions court as soon as possible (it is translating the 170 page Surat court judgment that’s in Gujarati) to get the conviction stayed.
Gandhi’s disqualification can be revoked only if a higher court stays the conviction. On Thursday, the trial court while pronouncing Gandhi guilty had suspended his sentence (two year jail) for 30 days to enable him to go in appeal.
The suspension of sentence however has no bearing on disqualification of Gandhi. A July 2013 SC judgment clearly states that a convicted MP sentenced for not less than two years would stand immediately disqualified even if the order is by a trial court.
