All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary K.C. Venugopal on Friday said the Congress would approach the Supreme Court against the Gujarat High Court’s dismissal of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s plea for a stay on his conviction in a defamation case over the Modi surname remark.
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Speaking to reporters in Kozhikode, Mr. Venugopal said there was no point in expecting justice from Gujarat in the current circumstances. He expressed full faith in the country’s judicial system.
“This verdict cannot affect our decision to do our best to keep the people of this country united. This is not a political backlash but an opportunity for the Congress. The people of this country are not fools,” Mr. Venugopal said.
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He said Mr. Gandhi was not a leader who can be broken by court verdicts or disqualification as a parliamentarian. “It has been five or six months since the initial judgment and punishment. He was not scared then or now,” Mr. Venugopal said.
The Gujarat High Court on Friday dismissed Mr. Gandhi’s plea for an injunction and upheld the order of a lower court over the ‘Modi surname’ case, citing that it was “just, proper, and legal”. An injunction order could have paved the way for Mr. Gandhi’s return to Parliament.
On March 23, a metropolitan magistrate court in Surat sentenced Mr. Gandhi to imprisonment for two years after convicting him for criminal defamation on a suit filed by Purnesh Modi, a BJP MLA from Gujarat.
Mr. Modi the filed the case against Mr. Gandhi for his remarks during an election rally in Karnataka in 2019, where he asked, “How come all thieves have Modi as the common surname?”