Congress workers in Kerala erupted in elation as news broke about the Supreme Court giving Rahul Gandhi, Member of Parliament representing the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, a reprieve by staying his conviction in a defamation case against him for his remarks allegedly about the Modi community.
Though the Congress had earlier challenged in the Gujarat High Court (HC) the trial court’s sentence awarding Mr. Gandhi the maximum punishment of two years, the HC had refused to stay the sentence. This had led to Mr. Gandhi’s disqualification as Lok Sabha MP.
Celebrations broke out at the Congress headquarters in the capital and in Wayanad, where Congress workers distributed sweets in celebration of the come back of Mr. Gandhi.
In his Facebook post, soon after the pronouncement of the verdict by the Supreme Court, Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said that it was a victory of truth. The Congress party could not be silenced or intimidated by the Sangh Parivar and the party would continue its fight against fascism and the politics of hate, he said.
The Congress had full faith in the Constitution, the judiciary and the law of the land and, more over, the people of Kerala and India were firmly behind Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Satheesan said.
The BJP was not just targeting Mr. Gandhi as an individual but was seeking crooked means to destroy the ideas and philosophies put forth by the Congress. The Supreme Court had effectively put a stop to this malicious intent of the BJP. This was a pronouncement that the entire country had been waiting for, for it signalled a victory for Mr. Gandhi, the Congress and the democratic values upheld by the party, Mr. Satheesan said.
Mr. Gandhi had been relentless in his opposition of the Sangh Parivar and his continuous questioning of the unholy nexus between Narendra Modi-Amit Shah and the corporates had been the ineptitude that many found in Mr. Gandhi. But for those who uphold secular and democratic values, this had been the most enduring quality of Mr. Gandhi, he said.
