BENGALURU: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy CM DK Shivakumar and other leaders of the state Congress have welcomed the Supreme Court order staying the conviction of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the defamation case which had led to his disqualification from parliamentary membership. Congress workers gathered in front of the party office and distributed sweets.
Siddaramaiah stated that it was a big win for democracy and the common man of India. “It is a defeat to those who conspired to keep him out of the Parliament. Satyameva Jayathe!!” he tweeted. Deputy CM Shivakumar said the apex court’s order is not just a moral victory, but also a legal and political one, with a strong message to the ruling dispensation that attempted to quash his spirit. “The politics of vendetta and manipulation has been dissected by the highest form of the judiciary, upkeeping the democratic ideals laid down by the Constitution of our country,” he stated.
Further, Shivakumar demanded that Rahul’s Parliament membership be restored within 24 hours, the same way he was disqualified hours after the court convicted him. When reporters asked whether this will be a poll issue in the next Lok Sabha elections, he said people have already understood what’s happening to democracy in the country. “The entire world is observing the developments here (in India),” he said.
Minister for RDPR and Science & Technology Priyank Kharge said the interim relief has increased their faith in the judiciary. Terming the SC order a victory for Mahatma Gandhi’s principles, Congress MLC BK Hariprasad said vendetta politics was behind sentencing Rahul to two years’ imprisonment and disqualification as MP.
BJP DID NOT PROVIDE RICE, LOST POLLS: PRIYANK
KALABURAGI: RDPR Minister Priyank Kharge on Friday said that voters of Karnataka defeated the BJP in the recent Assembly elections because the previous government failed to give sufficient quantity of rice to the poor, who cursed the saffron party leading to its defeat. He also criticised the BJP for not appointing a Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly nearly two months after elections and even after the culmination of the Budget session. He said BJP has become politically bankrupt. “In the run-up to the elections, BJP leaders had criticised Congress saying it was not possible to implement the guarantees. Now, the same leaders are asking us when we will implement them,” he quipped.