'Fighting for the voice of India': Rahul Gandhi on his disqualification from Lok Sabha

New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said he is "fighting for the voice of India and ready to pay any price", hours after he was disqualified from the Lok Sabha as a member, a day after a court sentenced him to two years in jail in a defamation case.

"Fighting for the voice of India, I am ready to pay any price," the former Congress president wrote in a tweet, in an apparent reference to his disqualification from the Lower House.

He was convicted in a defamation case by a court in Gujarat's Surat on Thursday for his alleged "all thieves have Modi surname" remarks at a rally in Karnataka’s Kolar in 2019. The court sentenced him to two years in jail. However, he was granted bail.

"Consequent upon his conviction by the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Surat, Rahul Gandhi, Member of Lok Sabha representing the Wayanad parliamentary constituency of Kerala stands disqualified from the membership of Lok Sabha from the date of his conviction i.e. March 23, in terms of the provisions of Article 102(1)(e) of the Constitution of India read with Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951," read the notification issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat on Friday.

The Congress party slammed the Centre over the same and termed it as 'vendetta politics ".

The party also said it will be challenged.

"The country is witnessing the politics of vendetta being spearheaded by the Modi government against Rahul Gandhi. Today, he has been disqualified.

Modi government and BJP are under the impression that Rahul Gandhi has to be throttled and muzzled because if he is allowed to speak inside the Parliament then the danger will come for them," Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said reacting to Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from the Lower House.

He added, "This is a very cruel demonstration of an 'autocrat' government. Democracy cannot survive under the present dispensation. In India, those who are running the government, they do not believe in the principle of democracy." (UNI)