The Lok Sabha secretariat cleared Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s return as MP in the Lower House on Monday, days after the Supreme Court had stayed his conviction in a criminal defamation case.
Gandhi will be back in the Lok Sabha, representing his constituency Wayanad, at a time when the Opposition bloc INDIA has been demanding for a dedicated discussion on Manipur after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement on the same in the parliament.
Gandhi was disqualified as LS MP on March 24 after the metropolitan court in Surat in Gujarat sentenced him to two years in jail in the case a day earlier following his comments regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname. At a rally in Karnataka’s Kolar ahead of the 2019 general election, in a dig at PM Modi, Gandhi had said, “How come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?”
On July 7, the Gujarat High Court dismissed his plea seeking a stay on the conviction, after which he approached the apex court on July 15.
