Adhir writes to Speaker seeking debate in Lok Sabha on Rahul Gandhi's disqualification

New Delhi | Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote to Speaker Om Birla on Tuesday demanding a debate on whether Rahul Gandhi's disqualification was "a disproportionate punishment", and cited that a BJP MP did not face the same action despite being awarded a higher sentence in 2016.

He said Naranbhai Kachhadiya, the BJP MP from Amreli in Gujarat, was not disqualified from Parliament in 2016 despite being awarded a three-year jail term for offences under IPC sections 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 186 (voluntarily obstructing public servant from discharge of duty), and 143 (punishment for member of an unlawful assembly).

Kachhadiya should have been disqualified, but the then speaker did not resort to any action against him, the Congress leader said.

"But it is intriguing to note that...Rahul Gandhi...was summarily disqualified from Lok Sabha in the wake of the Surat district court verdict of two years sentence to jail even though his sentence was suspended by the same court for a period of one month, which facilitated his next attempt for an appeal in higher courts," he said.

Chowdhury said a sessions court in Surat on Monday granted bail to Gandhi in the defamation case and suspended his two-year sentence till the disposal of the appeal against his conviction.

"With heavy heart and mortification I plead to you that there should be a debate in Parliament as to ascertain the fact that whether our leader...has been awarded disproportionate punishment which smacks of cognitive dissonance...," Chowdhury wrote.

He said "what is sauce for the goose must be the sauce for the gander".

Under Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, two conditions are to be met before disqualifying an elected member. First the member has to be awarded conviction for an offence and second, he has to be sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years, he said.

"According to my knowledge before disqualifying the elected member this two conditions are considered prerequisite.... In my view the second condition cannot stand the test of the prescribed provision of the Representation of the People Act as the sentence of Rahul Gandhi was suspended by the trail court itself," the Congress leader said.

Gandhi was disqualified from the Lok Sabha a day after a Surat court convicted and sentenced him to two-year imprisonment on March 23 in a criminal defamation case for his "Modi surname" remark made in Kolar in Karnataka in 2019.