Guwahati: After a Surat court on Thursday held Congress MP Rahul Gandhi guilty in a 2019 defamation case and sentenced him to two years imprisonment, hundreds of supporters in Assam expressed resentment over the order.
The Congress workers and supporters staged a protest in front of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) headquarters in Assam’s Guwahati supporting Rahul Gandhi.
The protestors were seen waving Congress flags and raising slogans against the Modi government holding posters of Rahul Gandhi and Congress party flags.
Barricades were erected at the protest site by the police to prevent the protestors from taking to the city streets.
The protestors and police also engaged in a scuffle when the law enforcers tried to stop them from marching ahead.
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Reacting to the development, All India Congress Committee (AICC) Media Coordinator Bobbeeta Sharma said, “We have always seen that the BJP has been obsessed with Rahul Gandhiji and he has been harassed right, left and centre. Whenever he speaks they get very agitated and this is an old case and anything can be spoken in political rallies. Even the BJP leaders speak a lot in political rallies but we don’t go after them, we don’t file any case against them.”
“We have also seen that not only in political rallies but even in parliament how he is harassed and how he is insulted. We have seen very recently that he was even asked to change his name to Nehru, wasn’t that an insult”, asked Sharma.
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“So you can imagine, but we didn’t file a case against the person who said it. Prime Minister had said it. But such things destroy the atmosphere and the environment in the country when somebody is harassed unnecessarily all the time. Now you see, the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi is in jail, and a lot of people have been indicted by ED, by CBI. Mostly the country is going down in the dumb, so this needs to be corrected and I hope the people of India realise what is happening to their country”, she added.
Earlier on Thursday, a Surat court held Rahul Gandhi guilty in a defamation case, dated back to 2019, sentencing the Wayanad MP to two years imprisonment.
The court however approved Gandhi’s bail on a surety of Rs 15,000 and later stayed the sentence for 30 days to allow him to appeal.
The defamation case, filed by BJP MLA from Surat West Purnesh Modi, pertains to the alleged remarks that Rahul Gandhi made in 2019 during a Lok Sabha election rally in Karnataka where he said, “Why all the thieves have Modi in their names whether be it Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, and Narendra Modi?”