A day after being found guilty of defamation for making a comment deemed to be an insult to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, prominent opposition figure Rahul Gandhi was removed from India’s parliament on Friday.
The Gujarat case is one of many that have been filed against the prime minister’s main rival in recent years. Modi’s administration has been widely accused of using the law to target and silence critics.
Gandhi, a member of the opposition Congress party, was given a two-year prison term but was allowed to leave on bail after his attorneys promised to challenge the decision on Thursday.
However, the conviction has ruled him ineligible to continue sitting in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of Indian parliament, a notice from the chamber’s joint secretary said.
“Rahul Gandhi… stands disqualified from the member of Lok Sabha from the date of his conviction,” the notice said.
Congress spokesman Akhilesh Pratap Singh confirmed to AFP that his party had received the notice.
“Black Day for Indian Democracy!” wrote Srinivas Bhadravathi Venkata, president of the party’s youth wing, on Twitter.
Gandhi, 52, is the leading face of the Congress party, once the dominant force of Indian politics, with a proud role in ending British colonial rule, but now a shadow of its former self.
As the son, grandson, and great-grandson of past prime ministers, starting with independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru, he is a member of India’s most illustrious political dynasty.
He has, however, found it difficult to stand up to Modi’s electoral machine and its nationalist pleas to the nation’s majority of Hindus.
