India National Congress party legislator Rahul Gandhi, a top opposition politician, was convicted of criminal defamation on Thursday by a local court in India's Gujarat state.
The court in the city of Surat sentenced Gandhi to a two-year jail term for remarks he made during a public speech in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election.
However, Gandhi has managed to secure bail via a surety bond of INR 10,000 ($122). His lawyer told the court that the politician would move the Gujarat High Court for relief in 30 days.
“The sentence awarded is for 2 years and against that sentence, he has plead that he may be released on bail till the appeal period and as per law, the Court has granted him bail for 30 days and until appeal, the sentence is suspended by the Court, said Ketan Reshamwala, the lawyer for Purnesh Modi, who filed the case against Gandhi.
“We will emerge from all the cases. We will get justice,” said Arjun Modhwadia, a Congress party politician from Gujarat.
A local Congress politician defended Gandhi in the light of court conviction, saying that “false cases” have been filed against the opposition politician.
Meanwhile, Congress party activists held protests in Surat as they carried placards proclaiming Rahul as ‘sher-e-hindustan’ (the Lion of India).
What Exactly Did Rahul Gandhi Say?
Addressing a meeting in the southern state of Karnataka, Gandhi had slammed Prime Minister Modi by claiming that all the “thieves have a common surname”.
The reference was to Indian fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, who fled India in 2018 after defrauding Indian banks of over $2 billion. Nirav lost a court battle against extradition to India last year and is currently behind bars in London’s Wandsworth Prison.
Lalit Modi, another Indian fugitive, has been accused of financial impropriety, rigging contracts, and betting, among other charges, while he was the head of the Indian Premier League (IPL) until 2010. The IPL is known as the world’s most expensive cricket league and is backed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Modi fled India after the charges surfaced in 2010 and has since lived out of London.