Will fight this battle both ‘legally and politically’: Cong

Hitting out at the government over Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from Lok Sabha, the Congress on Friday said it was “a black day for Indian democracy” and asserted that the battle will be fought both “legally and politically”. The Opposition party also alleged that the action was driven by “political vendetta”. Gandhi was disqualified from Lok Sabha on Friday, a day after he was convicted by a Surat court in a 2019 criminal defamation case over his “Modi surname” remark. Announcing his disqualification, the Lok Sabha Secretariat in a notification said that it was effective from March 23, the day of his conviction. Reacting to Gandhi’s disqualification, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the BJP made all efforts to get him disqualified as he was speaking the truth. “He has been removed from the House for speaking the truth, fighting for the Constitution and for people’s rights,” Kharge alleged. “This was not a question of backward class, Lalit Modi and Nirav Modi are not of backward class. They are trying to build a perception that Rahul Gandhi spoke against backward class. Gandhi was putting forward the truth before the country so they were not liking it,” he said in an apparent reference to BJP chief J P Nadda’s remarks that Gandhi had compared OBC communities to thieves.