A copy of the Supreme Court order, that stayed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s conviction by a Surat court in a criminal defamation case, was formally handed over to the Lok Sabha Secretariat, party’s leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said on Saturday.
Questioning the “delay” in reinstating Mr. Gandhi, Congress communication chief Jairam Ramesh asked if “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is afraid of his participation in the No-Confidence Motion”.
In a post on social media platform, X, Mr. Ramesh wrote, “26 hours have passed since the Supreme Court stayed his wholly unjustified conviction. Why hasn’t his position as MP been restored yet? Is the Prime Minister afraid of his participation in the No Confidence Motion?”
Mr. Chowdhury too conveyed his disappointment over the Lok Sabha Secretariat’s response to his request that Mr. Gandhi should be immediately reinstated, so that he can participate in the no-confidence motion against the Modi government, which begins on August 8.
““The speed with which he was disqualified, it is important to reinstate him with the same speed. I called up Speaker sahib last night and told him that I want to submit the court documents to you to facilitate Rahul Gandhiji’s return to the House. He then advised me to call him up this morning,” Mr. Chowhury told reporters at a press conference.
“When I did so, he then directed me to speak to the Secretary General of the Lok Sabha and deposit the documents at his office. The Secretary General told me that his office was shut today and asked me to give it to the Speaker’s office and from there, it will come to his office,” he added.
The Congress leader said he sent the court papers to the Secretariat through dak [despatch] and got it signed by an official but it wasn’t stamped. “When Rahul Gandhiji has got relief from the court, now our request is that there should not be any difficulty in his return to the Lok Sabha because of any technicality,” he said.
The head of Congress’ Analaytics department, Praveen Chakravarty, also took to X and wrote, “There was never a case for @RahulGandhi to be disqualified & evicted. An orchestrated judgement in a bogus case by a friendly court had to be rectified by the SC, when 70,000 cases are pending. Shows how much India’s institutions are damaged”.
