‘Rahul will appeal court ruling, being punished for speaking truth’

The Congress on Thursday said former party chief Rahul Gandhi will file an appeal against a Gujarat court verdict holding him guilty in a 2019 criminal defamation case and alleged that he was being “punished” for raising his voice for the truth. A court in Surat sentenced Gandhi to two years in jail in the case, filed on a complaint by BJP MLA Purnesh Modi for his alleged remark, “How come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?” The court also granted Gandhi bail and suspended the sentence for 30 days to allow him to appeal in a higher court, his lawyer Babu Mangukiya said. Several Congress leaders, including party president Mallikarjun Kharge and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, spoke out angrily on the matter. “A scared machinery of power is trying to suppress the voice of Rahul Gandhi through ‘saam, daam, dand, bhed’ (every trick in the book),” Priyanka Gandhi said in Hindi on Twitter.