NEW DELHI: Breaking silence over his disqualification from the Lok Sabha, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hit out at the Narendra Modi-led BJP government reiterating that "democracy is under attack" in India.
Speaking at a press conference, the Congress leader said, "attacks being made on democracy in India, examples of it keep manifesting from time to time," adding that he will keep asking questions on the Adani issue and that "they (BJP) cannot scare me by disqualification or putting me in jail."
Lambasting PM Narendra Modi, Rahul said that he had been disqualified because "the Prime Minister is scared about my next speech on Adani and that is why this whole game of disqualification, allegations by ministers aimed at distracting people from Adani issue."
The Congress leader said: "This is the whole drama that is been orchestrated to defend the Prime Minister from the simple question- Who's Rs 20,000 crore went to Adani's shell companies? I am not scared of these threats, disqualifications or prison sentences."
Further, the Congress leader asserted that he will "continue to ask questions and fight for democracy in India" irrespective of whether he is reinstated or permanently disqualified. The Congress leader also thanked all opposition parties for extending support to him and assured that they would work together.
On Friday, Gandhi was disqualified as a member of the Lok Sabha, a day after his conviction by the Surat court in a defamation case. The Congress leader was sentenced to two years imprisonment in a defamation case filed against him over his 'Modi surname' remark. The court approved Gandhi's bail on a surety and stayed the sentence for 30 days to allow him to approach the higher courts.
In April 2019, he made the remark "how come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname" at a Lok Sabha election rally at Kolar in Karnataka.
In his first response, Rahul said in a tweet, "I'm fighting for the voice of India. I’m ready to pay any price." The Congress party came down heavily against the BJP government calling it a "strangulation of democracy." At a high-level meeting, the party decided to hold mass agitations across the country from Monday.
Rahul's disqualification also managed to unite the Opposition as several parties — including the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which has been at loggerheads with Congress — rallied around the Congress leader.
Modi's government has been widely accused of using the law to target and silence critics, and the case in the premier's home state of Gujarat is one of several lodged against his chief opponent in recent years.
Gandhi, 52, is the leading face of the Congress party, once the dominant force of Indian politics, but now a shadow of its former self. He is the scion of India's most famous political dynasty and the son, grandson and great-grandson of former prime ministers, beginning with independence leader Jawaharlal Nehru. But he has struggled to challenge the electoral juggernaut of Modi's party and its nationalist appeals to the country's Hindu majority.
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Action against critics
Several senior lawmakers have been disqualified from Indian legislatures in the past, including a state chief minister. Indira Gandhi, Rahul's grandmother, was briefly forced out of the chamber by a court decision in 1977 while she was prime minister.
But legal action has been widely deployed against opposition party figures and institutions seen as critical of the Modi government in recent years.
Gandhi himself faces at least two other defamation cases in the country and a money laundering case that has been snaking its way through India's glacial legal system for more than a decade.
Central investigators last month arrested a top member of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which governs New Delhi on allegations he had corruptly benefitted from reforms to the capital's liquor licensing rules.
The party is seeking to supplant Congress as the main opposition to Modi's government and its members have decried the arrest as politically motivated.
Also in February, Indian tax authorities raided the BBC's local offices, weeks after the broadcaster aired a documentary on Modi's conduct during deadly sectarian riots decades ago.
The Editors Guild of India said then that the raids were part of a wider "trend of using government agencies to intimidate or harass press organisations that are critical of government policies."
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