Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi will appeal his defamation conviction on Monday

2 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The Indian opposition leader Rahul Ghandi will present his appeal on Monday against the prison sentence for defamation that has earned him his disqualification as a deputy in what he considers political persecution.

The head of the Indian National Congress party was sentenced to two years in prison on March 23 following the resolution of a 2019 case in which he was charged with defamation over a reference to the surname of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Why all the thieves, be they Nirav Modi (businessman accused by Interpol and the Indian government of criminal conspiracy), Lalit Modi (former head of the Indian Premier League) or Narenda Modi (current Prime Minister of India), Do they have a last name ‘Modi’?” Ghandi said at the time.

In his plea, Ghandi will ask the Surat appeals court to annul the order of the Magistrate who convicted him in the defamation case, as well as the provisional suspension of the sentence until the matter is resolved.

Gandhi’s lawyer argued that the court proceedings were “flawed” from the start and also said that Prime Minister Modi should have been the complainant in the case, and not a fourth ‘Modi’, his deputy Purnesh Modi, because the head of the Government was the main goal of Gandhi’s speech.

Gandhi’s ban, which could continue for the next eight years, has ended up uniting the Indian opposition in a furious criticism of the Indian government, which they accuse of using the country’s security forces and courts in what they see as an act of revenge.