The Congress party in India has called a meeting of opposition leaders following the conviction of senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case. Gandhi was found guilty of defamation for a 2019 campaign trail remark implying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a criminal. However, he was granted bail and his sentence was suspended for 30 days to let him appeal the decision. The Congress party has described the verdict as an example of the “Modi government’s politics of vengeance, politics of threats, politics of intimidation and politics of harassment,” adding that it will fight the case legally as well as directly. The Supreme Court in a 2013 verdict had said that any MP or MLA stands disqualified from the time of his conviction if a sentence of two or more years is pronounced.
