NEW DELHI: Congress leader and Member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi has been disqualified from Parliament, a day after his conviction in 2019 criminal defamation case.
Gandhi was on Thursday sentenced to two years in jail by a Surat court in a 2019 criminal defamation case over his “Modi surname” remark.
Gandhi’s disqualification as Wayanad MP is effective from March 23, the day of his conviction, the Lok Sabha Secretariat said in its notification on Friday.
According to the Representation of the People Act, a person sentenced to imprisonment of two years or more shall be disqualified “from the date of such conviction” and remain disqualified for another six years after serving time.
The court of Chief Judicial Magistrate HH Varma, which held 52-year-old Gandhi guilty under Indian Penal Code(IPC) sections 499 and 500, had also granted him bail and suspended the sentence for 30 days to allow him to appeal in a higher court.
As the conviction ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections set off a political slugfest and posed another challenge to Gandhi with a bearing on his political future, the Congress said he will file an appeal.
The defamation case was filed against Gandhi for his alleged remarks “How come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?” on a complaint lodged by BJP MLA and former Gujarat minister Purnesh Modi.
The MP from Wayanad in Kerala made the remarks while addressing a rally at Kolar in Karnataka on April 13, 2019 during the Lok Sabha poll campaign.