Indian opposition holds Gandhi-inspired protest calling Modi ‘a coward’

Members and supporters of India’s largest opposition party protested on Sunday against their leader’s disqualification from parliament in nationwide sit-ins inspired by Mahatma Gandhi.

Rahul Gandhi, a senior member of the Congress party, lost his seat in the lower house after a court in Gujarat sentenced him to two years in prison over a 2019 joke about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname.

Mr Gandhi, 52, is part of the Gandhi political dynasty and one of the most high-profile opposition figures in India. His disqualification comes as a major blow just a year before general elections in which Mr Modi will seek a third term.

Senior Congress party leaders led the protest in New Delhi after being denied permission by the police, who said the request to protest was rejected due to law and order and traffic reasons.

Senior leader KC Venugopal said it has become a habit for the Modi government to disallow every opposition protest. “This will not deter us, our fight for truth against tyranny goes on,” he said.

General secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadras said: “India’s prime minister is a coward. He is arrogant. This country has a very old tradition of teaching a lesson to arrogant leaders.”

Mr Gandhi’s supporters, who oppose Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), reacted strongly to his disqualification, calling it the “murder of democracy”.

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Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said the sit-ins, or “satyagraha” was not just about the party or Rahul Gandhi but “about Indian democracy”.

In his first news conference since the conviction, Mr Gandhi said on Sunday he had been disqualified because Mr Modi was afraid about him raising questions about the prime minister’s connection with the chairman of Adani Group.

Gautam Adani is the founder and chair of the Adani Group, a multinational conglomerate, and is said to be a close associate of Mr Modi.

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“I have been disqualified because the prime minister is scared of my next speech, he is scared of the next speech that is going to come on Adani,” Mr Gandhi said.

“So he is terrified about the next speech that is going to come, and they don’t want that speech to be in the parliament,” he said, referring to the prime minister.

Mr Gandhi and the other opposition party leaders have demanded a joint parliamentary committee investigation following a report by Hindenburg Research, a US financial research company, that accuses the Adani Group of stock-price manipulation and fraud running into billions of dollars. The Adani Group has denied any wrongdoing.

Mr Gandhi was convicted on Thursday in a case filed by a BJP member claiming the Congress party member had defamed the entire Modi community during his election speech in 2019.

“Why all the thieves, be it Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi or Narendra Modi, have Modi in their names,” Gandhi allegedly said during the rally in the southern state of Karnataka. He was referring to fugitive business tycoon Nirav Modi and former Indian Premier League (IPL) chief Lalit Modi.

The court granted him bail and suspended his jail sentence for 30 days, allowing him to appeal.