India: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi reinstated as lawmaker

The Indian Parliament reinstated opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi as a lawmaker on Monday, the government said in a statement.

Gandhi had been disqualified from Parliament in March after being convicted of defamation. The case concerned comments Gandhi made in 2019 about the surname of Prime Minister Narendra Modi being associated with criminals.

His return as a lawmaker comes after the Supreme Court suspended the conviction last week. 

This permits Gandhi to run in the 2024 general elections. 

Congress welcomes move

Gandhi's disqualification has "ceased to operate subject to further judicial pronouncements," said Utpal Kumar Singh, the secretary general of the lower house in Parliament. 

The president of the Indian National Congress, Mallikarjun Kharge, welcomed the Parliament's decision and tweeted that this "brings relief to the people of India."

Kharge added that Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should utilize the "time left" in their tenure to concentrate on "actual governance rather than denigrating democracy by targeting opposition leaders."  

Last week, Congress, which is building a grand alliance and gearing up for the 2024 general elections, celebrated the Supreme Court's decision to stay the conviction. 

"This is the victory of truth," Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a leader of the Congress party had said.  

What was Gandhi accused of?

In 2019, during an election campaign speech, Gandhi asked in jest why "all thieves have Modi as [their] common surname."

"Why all the thieves, be it Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi or Narendra Modi, have Modi in their names?" he added in the speech, naming three unrelated people with the same last name: a fugitive diamond tycoon, a cricket executive barred from the Indian Premier League, and lastly the Indian prime minister.

The statement irked members of the BJP, who framed to comments as a slur against Modi and those with the surname. 

A criminal defamation case was filed against Gandhi by Purnesh Modi, a BJP legislator who said that the statement had offended everyone named Modi in India.

A court in Gujarat, which is the home state of Modi, sentenced Gandhi to two years in jail, but he was granted bail. However, anyone sentenced to a custodial term of two years or more is ineligible to sit in India's parliament, which had forced Gandhi's expulsion.

Gandhi argued that there is no community that goes by the name of Modi, so he cannot be accused of defaming the group as a whole. He also said that those with the last name of Modi fall into different communities.

Editor's note: August 7, 2023: This article has been updated to add further context concerning the comments Gandhi made in 2019 and the defamation case against him.

ns/wmr (AFP, Reuters, AP)