Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has suggested that the “silver lining” in the two-year jail sentence of Rahul Gandhi for defamation is the unprecedented unity of opposition parties that it has sparked. Tharoor cited the example of regional parties, traditionally both rivals to and unassociated with Congress, such as the Aam Admi Party (AAP) in Delhi, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in Hyderabad and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Kolkata, all standing with the beleaguered Congress leader. Both Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and Mamata Banerjee condemned the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government without mentioning Rahul Gandhi directly. “We have differences with the Congress, but it is not right to implicate Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case like this,” tweeted Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
