A court in Maharashtra’s Bhiwandi has on Monday, March 7, granted Congress scion Rahul Gandhi exemption from appearing in person during the day’s hearing in the 2014 ‘RSS killed Mahatama Gandhi’ defamation case filed against him. The court granted Rahul Gandhi the exemption after his counsel informed the court that the Congress leader was busy with polls in Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.
On Monday, the court was set to record the evidence of complainant Rajesh Kunte in the defamation case, but the court of FCJM JV Palival postponed the hearing after Gandhi’s counsel Narayan Iyer sought exemption from appearance for his client, citing his busy schedule.
The court will now hear the case on March 22.
The ‘RSS killed Gandhi’ defamation case‘ against Rahul Gandhi
It may be recalled that an RSS activist namely Rajesh Kunte had filed a defamation case against Gandhi in 2014 after watching Gandhi give a speech on TV in which he accused the RSS of the murder of Mahatma Gandhi. It was alleged by the RSS activist that the Congress leader had said at a rally during last year’s Lok Sabha poll that a worker of the saffron outfit killed Mahatma Gandhi.
At that time, the Supreme Court had slammed then Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for his remark that RSS is behind the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, while prima facie indicating that he will have to face trial for criminal defamation and prove his innocence.
We had reported how in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, an aggressive Rahul had made some rather controversial statements. Later during the trial, Rahul Gandhi made a U-Turn. He told the Supreme Court that he did not blame the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on the RSS. He further said his remark had been misinterpreted by the RSS worker who filed the initial complaint against him. His U-Turn came as a rude shock to his social media warriors who had backed Rahul’s decision of not apologising and settling the case.
‘Temple run to peddling lies to vacations’: how the polls have kept Congress scion ‘busy’
Probably, Rahul Gandhi’s lawyer has correctly claimed his ‘busy schedule’ as a justification for his absence from the court hearing. As the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections near their conclusion, the Gandhi scion has actually gotten tangled up in a last-ditch effort to grab some residual votes by lying through his teeth and dragging in Hinduism to make his lies sound intricate.
While the Uttar Pradesh Elections are on, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are already on a temple run. Hours before PM Modi was supposed to pray at the Kashi Vishwanath temple, Rahul and Priyanka reached there as a part of their seasonal-Hindu program.
After the temple run, Rahul Gandhi spoke in Varanasi only to peddle a long-debunked lie against PM Modi. To make his lie more impactful the Congress leader went on to drag in Hinduism in his speech.
While Rahul Gandhi has lately been very ‘busy’, it is important to note that he had been missing in action during the campaign for the first two phases of the crucial Uttar Pradesh elections despite his name being there on the star campaigners list for the first two faces of the Uttar Pradesh polls. The campaign had then been led by his sister and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Moreover, when all political parties were gearing up on campaigns and rallies for the upcoming Assembly elections in five states, Rahul Gandhi had left India for a ‘short personal trip’, reportedly to Italy. Gandhi was scheduled to kick start the campaign in Punjab with the party rally in district Moga on January 3. The rally had, however, gotten postponed. Reports had then suggested that Congress would not start its campaigning in Punjab before Gandhi’s return to India.
