Rahul Gandhi gets bail in criminal defamation conviction in ‘Modi’ surname case

A court in India has granted opposition leader Rahul Gandhi‘s appeal against a two-year jail term handed to him in a defamation case in Gujarat and suspended his prison sentence.

It means he is free until the next hearing in the case, scheduled for 13 April.

Gandhi, a fierce critic of Narendra Modi and touted as his main challenger in the 2024 polls, was ousted from parliament after a court sentenced him to two years in prison for mocking the “Modi” surname in a 2019 election speech.

The case against Gandhi, the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister and leader of the Congress party, was widely condemned as a curb on free speech and generated protests across India.

Gandhi flew from capital New Delhi to Surat, in India’s Gujarat state, to appear in a local court where he was expected to seek a suspension or temporary stay of his conviction, his lawyers told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.

Purnesh Modi, a man who shares the prime minister’s surname, which is common in his home state of Gujarat, accused Gandhi of defamation over a 2019 speech. “Why all the thieves, be it Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi or Narendra Modi, have Modi in their names?” Gandhi had said during a rally in the southern Karnataka state in 2019 while referring to a business tycoon, a former Indian Premier League chief, and the Indian prime minister respectively.

The petitioner is not related to the prime minister or the other two Modis.

Gandhi was convicted on 23 March and expelled from parliament the next day, sparking opposition lawmakers to rally to his defense and call his expulsion a new low for India’s constitutional democracy.

Gandhi was given bail for 30 days. Under Indian law, a criminal conviction with a prison sentence of two years or more is grounds for expulsion from parliament. If Gandhi‘s conviction is not suspended or overturned by a higher court, he could face prison and will likely not be able to contest national elections in 2024.

Mr Modi’s critics say India’s democracy – the world’s largest with nearly 1.4 billion people – has been in retreat since he first came to power in 2014. They accuse his populist government of pursuing a Hindu nationalist agenda, a charge his administration has denied. Mr Modi’s government says its policies benefit all Indians.

Gandhi‘s family, starting with his great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, has produced three prime ministers. Two of them – Rahul Gandhi‘s grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and father, Rajiv Gandhi — were assassinated.

Even though Gandhi is projected to be the main challenger to the Modi government, his Indian National Congress party has suffered humiliating defeats in the last two general elections. In a bid to woo voters, Gandhi has railed against Mr Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party in recent months, accusing them of corruption and of tarnishing India’s democratic credentials.

Additional reporting from wires