Tamil Nadu: ‘Will chop off tongue of Judge who convicted Rahul Gandhi,’ says Congress leader; booked

A Congress leader Manikandan from Tamil Nadu has threatened to chop off the tongue of a judge who sentenced Rahul Gandhi to two years imprisonment in a 2019 ‘Modi surnmane’ defamation case when the party comes to power.

A case has been filed and registered against him for this remark.

The SC (Scheduled Caste) and ST (Scheduled Tribes) wings of the Indian Congress Party were protesting against Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification in Tamil Nadu’s Dindigul when the district head of the Congress party named Manikandan said: –

On March 23, 2023, the Surat court judge gave two years prison term for our leader Rahul Gandhi. “Listen, Justice H Varma, when Congress comes to power, we will chop off your tongue,“ said Congress leader.

Subsequently, a case under three sections has been filed against Manikandan and an investigation by Dindigul Police has been initiated.

In March 2023, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was convicted in a 2019 criminal defamation case over his Modi surname remark at a rally. He was sentenced to two years in jail. Later, he was disqualified as a Member of Parliament.

This triggered a massive outrage among the Opposition, with several parties coming out in Gandhi’s support. The grand old party has been organising protests and demonstrations across the country against its leader’s conviction and disqualification from the Parliament.

Caught In His Own Web

In 2013, the Manmohan Singh Government brought in an ordinance to nullify the judgement. The ordinance allowed convicted MPs, MLAs and MLCs to keep their seats if their appeal had been “admitted by a higher court within 90 days and the conviction or sentence stayed”. The ordinance was criticised by the BJP and other political parties, which accused the Congress-led dispensation of protecting convicted criminals. Rahul, who was the vice-president of the Congress then, said the ordinance was “nonsense” and tore into the ordinance.

It is to be noted that, before Rahul Gandhi, there have been numerous disqualifications of MPs and MLAs post-conviction. This list includes big names such as Lalu Prasad Yadav after the fodder scam, J Jayalalithaa after the disappropriate asset case, Samajwadi Party MLA Azam Khan after the hate speech case and many others. But before these leaders Rahul’s grandmother Indira Gandhi was also disqualified as a Member of Parliament, as a Supreme Court judge barred her from entering the parliament for six years.