Indian Opposition Leader Reinstated to Parliament Despite Defamation Conviction

(Photo : Money SHARMA / AFP) (MONEY SHARMA/AFP via Getty Images)
India's opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, has been reinstated to the nation's Parliament after the Supreme Court suspended his defamation conviction.

India's prominent opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, has been reinstated to the country's Parliament after the nation's Supreme Court suspended his defamation conviction.

Gandhi, the Congress party leader, lost his status as a lawmaker in March after authorities sentenced him to two years in prison. His reinstatement comes two days after the Supreme Court's ruling.

Indian Opposition Leader Reinstated

Congress leaders quickly celebrated Gandhi's return to Parliament by shouting slogans and distributing sweets outside the building. Additionally, leaders of opposition parties revealed that they were ecstatic about the lawmaker's reinstatement.

Gandhi was a Congress party MP from Wayanad in the southern state of Kerala. Several political observers said that the lawmaker's reinstatement to Parliament boosts India, an alliance that 26 opposition parties formed.

This is because the MP would now be capable of contesting the national election that will be held next year. As per BBC, The alliance hopes that Gandhi will take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming election.

The conviction case against Gandhi was filed over comments that he made regarding Modi's surname during an election rally held in 2019. The MP's conviction and subsequent disqualification resulted in protests from opposition parties. They accused the governing BJP of targeting him because he is a political rival.

On the other hand, the ruling party denied the allegations, arguing that the judicial process was followed regarding Gandhi's case. The comment that got Gandhi into trouble was when he said, "Why do all these thieves have Modi as their surname? Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi."

The first, Nirav, was a fugitive Indian diamond tycoon, and Lalit was a former chief of the Indian Premier League who was previously banned for life by the nation's cricket board. BJP lawmaker Purnesh Modi filed a defamation case against Gandhi over his comments that allegedly defamed the entire Modi community.

Defamation Case Against Rahul Gandhi

On Monday, the secretary-general of the lower Parliament house, Utpal Kumar Singh, said that the opposition leader's conviction over his 2019 comments has "ceased to operate subject to further judicial pronouncements," according to Aljazeera.

When Gandhi was convicted, he immediately lost his Parliamentary seat and was jailed before being granted bail. Despite the 53-year-old lawmaker's efforts to overturn the conviction against him, his challenge has yet to be heard by a lower court.

In a statement, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the development is a "welcome step" and called on the Indian government to concentrate on "governance rather than denigrating democracy by targeting opposition leaders."

Many lawmakers saw Gandhi's conviction in 2019 as the ruling BJP government escalating its attacks on its opposition. Politicians from opposition parties have come face-to-face with various investigations by government agencies, and many were sentenced to prison.

On Friday, the leader of Congress in the lower house of Parliament, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, said that he hoped Gandhi would be reinstated for a Parliamentary vote of no confidence that opposition parties tabled against the prime minister this week. It was made over the government's handling of the outbreak of ethnic violence that spread across Manipur, said The Guardian.