India’s top court stayed Rahul Gandhi’s conviction in a high-stakes defamation case, enabling the opposition leader to seek his reinstatement as a lawmaker and to contest general elections due next year.
In their judgment, Supreme Court justices B. R. Gavai, P. S. Narasimha and Sanjay Kumar said that Gandhi’s conviction impacts not only him, but also “the rights of the electorate who have elected him to represent their constituency.”
Gandhi, 53, the leader of the main opposition Congress party, was sentenced to two years in jail by a lower court for allegedly making defamatory remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname during an election rally in 2019.
The conviction disqualified Gandhi from serving in Parliament and jeopardized his ability to contest elections for six years after being released from jail. A second court suspended his jail term until Gandhi’s appeal is decided.
Gandhi’s lawyer told the court that he faced irreversible damage from the conviction as he remains disqualified from Parliament. Many of Modi’s opponents see the case against Gandhi as politically motivated.
Gandhi has positioned himself as a challenger to Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party. A recent victory for Congress in local elections in the southern state of Karnataka has given Gandhi’s party a much needed boost.
Gandhi’s disqualification from Parliament and elections has become a major political flash point. More than two dozen opposition parties have united with Congress and vowed to fight together to defeat Modi in 2024 national elections.
--With assistance from Abhijit Roy Chowdhury.
