Rahul Gandhi on Sunday updated his Twitter bio and added ‘Dis’Qualified MP’ in the description two days after his disqualification as a Lok Sabha member of parliament.
The Congress leader was disqualified on Friday after a Surat court convicted him and sentenced him to two years in a 2019 defamation case.
The former Wayanad MP displayed the ‘disqualification’ as a badge of honour on his social media account which is followed by 23 million people. on a day his party launched a day-long satyagraha protesting Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification.
Although Gandhi’s 23 million Twitter followers may now know him as a disqualified MP.
Rahul on Saturday during a press conference said he was unaffected by the decision and “did not care if he gets disqualified permanently from the Lok Sabha.”
Also Read: ‘I’m disqualified because PM is scared of my next speech on Adani’: Rahul Gandhi
He also targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that he was disqualified from the Lok Sabha because the PM was scared of his next speech on Adani.
“I saw the fear in PM Modi’s eyes. Disqualify me, disqualify me for life. Put me inside jail. I will keep going. I will not stop,” Rahul had remarked.
He announced he will continue to ask who invested ₹20,000 crore in Adani Group through shell companies and what is the PM’s relationship with (Gautam) Adani.
This update comes on the day when the Congress is holding a national-wide “Sankalp Satyagraha” to protest Rahul’s disqualification at Rajghat in New Delhi.
Congress’ top brass including president Mallilarjun Kharge, general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra among other senior leaders like K C Venugopal, P Chidambaram, and Jairam Ramesh took part in the protest while a large number of party workers gathered outside the venue despite the police refusing to grant permission for the “satyagraha.”
His disqualification has triggered a massive political row with all opposition leaders coming together to condemn the ‘political vendetta’ of the government.
The Surat court convicted the Congress leader over his remark he made in Karnataka ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election where he wondered ‘how all thieves have Modi surnames’. He had allegedly named three persons, including fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, controversial cricket administrator Lalit Modi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Subsequently, former Gujarat minister and BJP MLA Purnesh Modi lodged a complaint against Rahul saying his remark defamed the entire ‘Modi community’.
On March 23, a Surat court sentenced Rahul to two years imprisonment but his sentence was suspended for 30 days and he was granted bail.
The next day, the Lok Sabha disqualified Rahul as a member of the parliament citing Section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 according to which, “if an MP, MLA or MLC is convicted of any offence and is sentenced for at least two years, he attracts disqualification and “shall be disqualified from the date of such conviction and shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six years since his release.”