Bhubaneswar/Kohima: The Odisha unit of the Congress on Sunday staged a state-wide ‘satyagraha’ to protest against the disqualification of Lok Sabha membership following party leader Rahul Gandhi’s conviction in a defamation case. At the same time, the Nagaland unit of the party also opposed Rahul’s inefficiency on Sunday and alleged that Rahul Gandhi’s inefficiency in Parliament shows that action will be taken against those who raise their voice, while ‘thieves will continue to roam freely’.
Odisha Pradesh Congress President Sharat Patnaik staged a sit-in in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue at Mahatma Gandhi Park in Bhubaneswar, while party whip in the assembly Taraprasad Bahinipati. Patnaik said, “Rahul Gandhi was immediately disqualified without giving him time to appeal in higher courts. This raises a question mark on the viability of democracy in the country.”
On the other hand, the Nagaland Congress termed the action against Rahul Gandhi as murder of democracy and said that the aim of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is to gain complete control of power. Rahul Gandhi, representing Kerala’s Wayanad seat, was disqualified from the Lok Sabha on Friday. A day earlier, a Surat court had convicted Rahul in a 2019 criminal defamation case and sentenced him to two years in prison. The case was filed for his alleged remarks ‘using Modi’s name’. However, after sentencing, the court also granted bail to Rahul and stayed the execution of his sentence for 30 days, so that he could challenge the verdict in the High Court.
