Expulsion of Rahul Gandhi from Parliament: A premeditated action

 

Expulsion of Rahul Gandhi from Parliament: A premeditated action

Democracy in India is under threat. A prominent national opposition leader-uncompromising critic of the Modi Government- finds himself expelled from Parliament at a lightning speed, as a matter of shock and disbelief, in the face of rapid political developments.  Rahul Gandhi paid price for speaking truth about the present pollical situation in India and raising inconvenient questions on the Adani scandal and the relation between the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the business tycoon – a multibillionaire Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group of Companies, who alleged to have amassed wealth through illegal and unethical means due to his proximity with the Prime Minister.

 

On 23 March 2023, Chief Judicial Magistrate Surat, H.H. Varma, convicts Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case and sentences him to two years imprisonment, suspends the operation of punishment and the sentence for 30 days, and grants him bail on a surety of Rs.15,000.00 to enable him to appeal in a higher court.   At an election rally in Kolar, Karnataka, on 13 April ,2019, Rahul asked the people: “Why do all thieves have the name Modi…Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi." It was a political justling in the context of the fugitives who defrauded the Banks and fled the country with the loot. None of the persons named by him had filed any defamation case. However, one Purnesh Modi- BJP MLA and ex-Minister of Gujarat- filed a complaint on April 16 before a Metropolitan Magistrate in Surat alleging that Rahul’s remarks amounted to defaming ‘the Modi community.’  According to the complainant, it was a case of 'slander'. Subsequently, in a strange development, the complainant obtained a stay on his complaint on 7 March ,2022 from the Gujarat High Court.

 

On 7 February 2023, Rahul Gandhi made a speech in Lok Sabha raising the questions on Adani and his relationship with the Prime Minister. Instead of ensuring that   the questions raised by him are answered, the Speaker, in an unprecedented action, got a huge chunk of his speech expunged from the record.  In a press briefing on 24 March, Jairam Ramesh, Head of the Media of the Congress Party, recalled the chronology of events leading to the conviction, that showed how the defamation case against Rahul Gandhi was 'managed': “the case was fast-tracked with the complainant withdrawing his own stay in the high court on February 16 (after change of the Magistrate)…followed by arguments resuming after one year on February 21, judgment reserved on March 17, and the judgment and conviction delivered on March 23. This is no coincidence” (TOI 25/3). This is the first time that the maximum punishment of two years imprisonment was imposed, that too in a case of 'slander' on any one since 1860, when the IPC came into operation. 

By imposing the maximum sentence of two years, the trial court ipso facto invoked the provision (3) of Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act so that Rahul Gandhi stood disqualified from the membership of Lok Sabha. And on the same day of the judgement, late in the evening, Prime Minster Narendra Modi along with his Ministers-Rajnath Singh, Prahlad Joshi and Kiren Rijiju -met Speaker Om Birla (IE 24/3). The Prime Minister meeting the Speaker in connection with the judgment was highly improper. It was a pressure on the Speaker to act, despite the court suspending both the punishment and the sentence for a month.

 

It is, therefore, not surprising that the Lok Sabha Secretariat notified the very next day, March 24, within 24 hours of the judgment, with alacrity and in a haste-post-haste, disqualifying Rahul Gandhi from the membership of Lok Sabha and declaring his seat from the Wayanad Constituency in Kerala  vacant, giving him no chance to appeal, considering the fact that a copy of the judgment in Gujarati, running into  some 170 pages , needing time to translate into English, was received only on the morning of March 24., hours before Rahul Gandhi’s expulsion. It is gross injustice done to the principal national opposition leader in a parliamentary democracy. 

And if this is not vindictive premediated action and death-knell to democracy, what else! According to K.C. Kaushik, former Secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association, the judgment gave Rahul Gandhi one month to appeal, ‘which means the verdict would come into force only after a month, till then the ruling would be in abeyance and there is no question of disqualification” (TOI 24/3) That the Magistrate did not have the jurisdiction to entertain the complaint and that he did not follow the due process of law is a different issue. S.Y. Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, says: “Some puzzling questions remain. How was it that the Petitioner who filed the suit against Rahul Gandhi sought a stay from the high court on Gandhi’s trial last year and was successful in delaying the proceedings for nearly 12 months? What specific circumstances prompted him to seek a vacation of stay when no additional evidence was produced? Why was the Magistrate changed last month? No reason has surfaced…why is there this selective efficiency in disqualifying members of the Opposition while turning a blind eye toward the members of the ruling dispensation?" (IE 27/3). Rajiv Ranjan Singh, President of JD(U), said the Centre played an active role in ensuring hasty disqualification of the Congress leader.  

 

Professor Suhas Palshikar in his article Why BJP focus is on Rahul (IE 25/3) has an interesting analysis. According to him, Rahul Gandhi "has   earned a new place in the pollical arena through the Bharat Jodo Yatra and his relentless attack on the character of the regime and its ideological brotherhood… The purpose was to avoid discussion on the Adani issue where the BJP is on the backfoot…. on the heels of the Bharat Jodo Yatra Rahul remained in the news and got an opportunity to present himself against the current regime. Why the BJP finds it necessary to singularly focus on him…Rahul has come to represent a sane view of the Indian society and its ills...he sought to appeal to the collective conscience of citizens. The citizens are dazed and dazzled by the darkness ushered in by the regime…Rahul’s Yatra  showed the possibility of a collective conscience willing to be awakened…there are efforts to arrive at an Indian version of the nation-state based on the Constitution and on the other hand, efforts to transform India into an un-Indian nation by purging the Indian characteristics of diversity  and adopting those which insist on communal uniformity…After 10 years in power, the BJP has done everything to change the mindset of India… Rahul- by design or by accident- represents a challenge to both its ideological position and its brazen exercise of state power. This has put the BJP in a bind."  This also explains the regime’s irrepressible hatred of Nehru and his legacy.

 

In his interaction with the Press on March 25, after the expulsion, Rahul Gandhi in a combative mood attacked the Modi government: "Please understand why I have been disqualified… I have been disqualified because the Prime Minister is scared of my next speech on Adani, I have seen it in his eyes. He is terrified…"  That is why , he added, the government had first tried to distract by raising his alleged ‘anti-India’ narrative in London, and then came the disqualification.  The ‘drama’, as he described it, began with his speech in Parliament on February 7 when he asked a set of questions to the government and that the government was rattled by the evidence he produced on the floor of the House about Modi’s relationship with Adani.” The “BJP Ministers lied about me in Parliament. They made statements to distract from the Adani issue… I wrote to the Speaker. I said it is my right as an MP, when somebody makes an accusation, to state my position. The first letter is not answered. I then wrote a second letter with more details.  Still, no answer., I then went to the Speaker's chamber, asked him what was going on, that we live in a democracy, you are the defender of that democracy, why are you not letting me make my statement. The Speaker smiled and said, I cannot do that. I am here defending the democratic voice of the Indian people. I will continue doing that. I will continue to ask the question...We have caught Rs.20,000 crore going into Adani's shell companies. Nobody knows whose money that is...what is the Prime Minister's relationship with Adani. It is an old relationship. It is a relationship that began when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Adani constructed the idea of resurgent Gujarat organised all that"(IE 26/3). And "I am not scared of all these threats..." 

Now the ruling party Ministers and spokespersons have given a new twist and political spin to what Rahul Gandhi said at the election rally. They accused him of having insulted not only 'the Modi community', but all OBC communities, and announced launching a nationwide campaign against him. This is a ploy to divert from the real issues and create vote bank and woo the Lingayats and Vakkaligas in Karnataka where election is due shortly.  All Modis are not OBCs, nor Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi. There are people with Modi surname among Muslims and Parsis. Incidentally, the person who filed the defamation case- Purnesh Modi- is not even OBC. He is a Brahmin. This is how the people are fooled and polarized to reap electoral dividends. It is politics with gloves off.  

The Congress held a ‘Sankalp Satyagraha’ on March 26, at the Rajghat. It asserted that the Modi Government took the vindictive action against Rahul Gandhi to silence him from speaking the truth. Priyanka Gandhi roared: "Prime Minister of this country is a coward. He is arrogant. He hides behind his power. But remember that there is a long tradition in our country and in Hindu dharma that people teach the arrogant king a lesson… You insult my mother, my family time and again. But no cases are filed. You are not disqualified from Parliament. You call a martyr's son anti- national... the person who travelled 4000 km on foot from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, along with lakhs of people to unit India... you call him casteist. You call him traitor Mir Jafer.  How much can you attack a person... You cannot intimidate and scare us. We are not going to be cowed down. Our fight begins now...our family fought for the country and has nurtured democracy in India with their blood."    It is the beginning of a new awakening.