India’s Supreme Court has suspended the defamation conviction of Rahul Gandhi, one of the country’s top opposition leaders. Gandhi was sentenced to two years in prison in March by a minor court in the state of Gujarat for calling Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “a thief” during an election rally in April 2019. He was also expelled from the parliament: with the suspension of his sentence, however, he will be able to return to parliament and also participate in next year’s political elections.
Gandhi is 53 years old and is one of the leaders of the Indian National Congress, the main opposition party, of which his mother Sonia Gandhi, widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, in office between 1984 and 1989, is president. the last member of a highly successful political dynasty, but despite his homonymy he is not related to Mohandas Gandhi, the most famous leader of India’s independence movement. Last year he walked 3,500 kilometers across India to meet with voters and revive interest in his party, which has historically been very powerful but has struggled in recent years to win voters’ trust .
His sentence had been interpreted as yet another attempt by the nationalist government of Narendra Modi to limit freedom of expression in the country: the Indian law which punishes defamation is in fact a legacy of the British colonial period which has been used extensively in recent years frequent to intimidate those who criticize the government and its representatives. Only at the end of February was the spokesman of the Indian National Congress, Pawan Khera, arrested and released after a few hours, again on the charge of insulting Modi. Gandhi was found guilty in a court in the western state of Gujarat, where Modi was a long-time governor before becoming a minister, and where he still maintains strong influence.
In Gandhi’s case, the very fact that he had been sentenced to the maximum sentence – two years – had triggered the possibility of expelling him from parliament. Indeed, according to Indian law, a member of parliament can be expelled only in some specific cases: for electoral crimes, such as bribery, undue influence or impersonation (the act of voting by pretending to be another person), or if sentenced for any crime to at least two years in prison. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the decision to impose the maximum sentence on him “was without sufficient reason and foundation”, and demanded that he be reinstated in his parliamentary role as soon as possible. The judges also chastised Gandhi for his comment about Modi, which they said was not “in good taste” and stressed that he should have been more careful in his speeches than he was in public.
It is not clear whether the sympathy and outrage Gandhi won over his conviction will be enough to attract new votes for his party. In recent months, the Indian National Congress has joined several other opposition parties to form a coalition called INDIA in hopes of a united front against Modi in next year’s elections, but a leader has yet to be identified within it. strong enough to challenge Modi and win. Gandhi is one of the few opposition figures to have the kind of recognition needed to fill such a role.