Mumbai: Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday termed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s suspension from Parliament as “murder of democracy” and said it was the “beginning of the end of dictatorship”. Thackeray said in a statement that it has become a crime to call a thief a thief, while the country’s “robbers are out”.
He said, “This is the murder of democracy. All agencies are under pressure. This is the beginning of the end of dictatorship… The fight needs to be given direction now. Rahul Gandhi, who represents the Wayanad parliamentary seat in Kerala, was on Friday disqualified from the membership of the Lok Sabha by a Surat court after his conviction in a 2019 defamation case. A notification issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat said that the order regarding his disqualification would be effective from March 23.
The notification states that he (Rahul Gandhi) has been disqualified under Article 102(1) of the Constitution and Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Significantly, a Surat court on Thursday convicted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case registered in 2019 over his ‘Modi surname remark’ and sentenced him to two years in jail.
