Congress demands restoration of Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha membership

Immediately after the Supreme Court stayed the conviction of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the 'Modi surname' defamation case, Congress demanded that the Lok Sabha membership of Rahul Gandhi be restored.

Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury met Speaker Om Birla and asked him to restore the membership at the earliest.

Addressing the media at Congress headquarters, Chowdhury said when the House was taking up private members’ business, I urged Rajendra Agrawal, who was presiding over the proceedings, to allow Gandhi to attend the House.

“As soon as we heard this news, we went to the Chairman in the House and asked him to restore the membership of Rahul Gandhi and call him to the House as soon as possible. On my request, he said we will see…First hand over the papers,” Chowdhury added.

He said we want Rahul Gandhi to join the debate on no-confidence motion. “His presence will add more colour to the debate on no-confidence motion,” said Chowdhary.

Congress president, Mallikarjun Kharge said that what remains to be seen now is how much time the Speaker takes to re-instate Rahul in Parliament as he had taken hardly 24 hours to remove him.

Congress-led INDIA alliance has moved a no-confidence motion against Modi government on July 25 that was admitted on July 26.

The government has scheduled the debate on no confidence between August 8 -10. PM Modi will reply to the motion on August 10.

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the conviction of Rahul Gandhi in a 2019 defamation case over his “why all thieves have the Modi surname” case.

This means his status as Wayanad's MP will be restored.

A three-judge bench of Justices BR Gavai, PS Narasimha and Sanjay Kumar said, “No reason has been given by the trial judge for imposing maximum sentence, the order of conviction needs to be stayed pending final adjudication,”.

Gandhi was disqualified as a Lok Sabha member following his conviction on March 23 this year.