Immediately after the high court order, the Congress, which described it as "highly disappointing, but not unexpected", said it will move the Supreme Court
New Delhi: The Gujarat High Court’s dismissal of Rahul Gandhi‘s plea to stay his conviction in a defamation case on Friday triggered a tsunami of allegations and counter-allegations with the Congress accusing the government of “finding new techniques to throttle” his voice and the BJP saying he has a “chronic habit” to abuse and defame others.
Immediately after the high court order, the Congress, which described it as “highly disappointing, but not unexpected”, said it will move the Supreme Court, asserting that the verdict redoubles its resolve to pursue the matter further.
Alleging that the BJP used “lies as part of a political conspiracy” to get Gandhi suspended from Parliament, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said no party leader or worker is afraid of the saffron party’s “political conspiracy” and will fight the battle both legally and politically.
“Shri Rahul Gandhi has always fought for the truth and will continue to fight in the future. The truth is that fugitives like Lalit Modi, Nirav Modi, Mehul ‘Bhai’, Vijay Mallya, and Jatin Mehta, under the supervision of the Modi government fled the country and reached abroad suspiciously after taking public money.
“The BJP freed them but used lies as part of a political conspiracy, (to) put Mr. Rahul Gandhi in the dock and got him suspended from Parliament,” Kharge alleged in a tweet in Hindi.
Welcoming the Gujarat High Court‘s decision, the BJP alleged it is a “chronic habit” of the Congress leader to abuse and defame others.
The Congress leader refused to apologise for his ‘Modi surname’ jibe and displayed “irresponsible arrogance,” BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said at a press conference here.
If he behaves like this and defames people and institutions, the law will catch up with him, Prasad said, asserting that those claiming that Gandhi’s punishment is harsh should answer as to why he committed such a “harsh” offense.
The law has caught up with him, he added.
It has become a “chronic habit” of Gandhi to abuse and defame eminent people and organisations, the former law minister said and added that the Congress leader has also been accused of insulting a “great patriot” like V D Savarkar and Hindutva organisation RSS.
Gandhi had to apologise to the Supreme Court for his claims on the Rafale case, but he later attacked a reporter covering his press conference by calling him a BJP spokesperson, Prasad said.
It is his arrogance that he believes he is above the law as he is from the Gandhi family, Prasad said, reiterating the BJP’s stand that the Congress leader insulted backward castes by allegedly linking those with Modi surname to thieves.
Echoing similar views, Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the Congress is unnecessarily making a “hue and cry” over the decision of the Gujarat High Court.
The Congress should accept that Gandhi has insulted the backward society and has got the punishment as per the judicial system based on the Constitution.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, Congress spokesperson and Gandhi’s counsel in the case Abhishek Singhvi said the Gujarat High Court dismissing Rahul Gandhi’s plea was “highly disappointing, but not unexpected”.
“The jurisprudence we have received from Gujarat, both from High Court and Sessions Court, is unique because it has no other parallel or precedent in the jurisprudence of the defamation law. HC has called it a heinous crime as if it is a crime against the country,” he said.
Singhvi said the ultimate court is the court of the people and they see what is happening and how an “entire cottage industry has been unleashed against one individual”.
This government is rattled because Rahul Gandhi speaks with facts and figures on demonetisation, the government’s “clean chit” to China, and the struggling economic situation.
The government is finding “newer and newer techniques to throttle his voice…we are seeing this cycle of oppression and suppression play out once again. We will fight it.
Rahul Gandhi will fight it. And if the last nine years are anything to go by, they will always fail to silence his vigilant voice,” Singhvi said.
AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said Rahul Gandhi is fighting the battle for truth and people’s interests, and an “arrogant regime” is using all the tricks to deter him.
In a long Twitter post in Hindi soon after the Gujarat High Court order, Priyanka Gandhi quoted the poem “samar shesh hai…(battle is yet to be over)” by Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’ and launched a scathing attack on the Modi government.
“Rahul Gandhi is fighting the battle for truth and people’s interests against this ‘arrogant regime’,” she said. The Congress leader alleged that the “arrogant regime” wants questions related to people’s interests that help improve their lives should not be raised.
“The arrogant regime is trying every trick in the book to suppress the truth, it is
adopting all means — ‘saam, daam, dand, bhed, chal, kapat (money, power, punishment, discrimination, deceit)’ — to distract from questions related to the interests of the public,” she said.
Meanwhile, the AAP, which has been at loggerheads with the Congress of late, came out in support of Gandhi and accused the BJP of indulging in “unproductive politics” to divert people’s attention from real issues.
Asked about the court’s decision, AAP chief spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar told reporters that it was certainly wrong and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had also called it “wrong” when Gandhi was convicted in the case.
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha said these judgements don’t give a positive sense of the judicial architecture.
The Gujarat High Court dismissed Gandhi’s plea seeking a stay on his conviction in the criminal defamation case over his “Modi surname” remark.
While dismissing the plea, Justice Hemant Prachchhak noted that Gandhi was already facing 10 criminal cases across India, adding that the order of the lower court was “just, proper and legal” in handing over a two-year jail term to Gandhi for his remarks.
A metropolitan magistrate’s court in Surat on March 23 had sentenced Gandhi to two years in jail after convicting him under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 499 and 500 (criminal defamation) in a 2019 case filed by BJP Gujarat MLA Purnesh Modi.