Rahul should not have been disqualified, says NDA ally PMK

The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), an ally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Tamil Nadu, said on Sunday Rahul Gandhi’s punishment is disproportionate to his speech and that he shouldn’t have been disqualified from the Lok Sabha in a haste

The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), an ally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Tamil Nadu, said on Sunday Rahul Gandhi’s punishment is disproportionate to his speech and that he shouldn’t have been disqualified from the Lok Sabha in a haste.

PMK chief Anbumani Ramadoss

“We are not in an alliance with the Congress but despite that we feel Rahul Gandhi has received a big punishment for his speech,” PMK chief and former union minister Anbumani Ramadoss said in Dharmapuri. “The court should have let him off with a warning for his remarks. According to me this is a wrong verdict. Beyond that, snatching away his post is also wrong. BJP could have avoided being in such a hurry. They should have given him time to appeal. If he still hadn’t got a favourable verdict, then they could have taken action.”

Meanwhile the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) on Sunday said that the BJP- led union government’s disqualification of Rahul Gandhi is akin to the acts of dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Their ally DMK which rules Tamil Nadu said that in three days they would make sure that Gandhi is reinstated.

The Congress unit compared Rahul Gandhi to Mahatma Gandhi who did not occupy an elected position in public life but the world listened to him. “He did not say anything which is wrong and untrue. The issue is that they don’t want Rahul Gandhi to speak in Parliament,” TNCC president K S Alagiri said at a press conference in Tirunelveli following their protest. “Because if he speaks in public, (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi doesn’t have to respond to him which is not the situation inside the Parliament.”

He listed four questions which Gandhi had posed to the Prime Minister regarding billionaire industrialist Gautham Adani. “Manmohan Singh had to face such questions in the Parliament and he answered them,” said Alagiri. “Dictators across the world are capable of doing anything they want which is what is happening here now. Hitler, Mussolini did this. Now, Modi is doing it. Rahul Gandhi has come in place of Mahatma Gandhi where people in India and the world listened to him.”

The TNCC was confident that their party would turn this into a people’s movement since political parties not affiliated to them have shown their support. “Mamta Baneerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Prashanth Kishore who are not with us have condemned this as wrong because that’s people’s opinion,” Alagiri said.

In the neighbouring union territory of Puducherry, former chief minister V Narayanasamy and a 100 party workers were detained for protesting against Gandhi’s disqualification.

Speaking during an event in Sivagangagi district, DMK’s organising secretary R S Bharathi criticised the speed in why Rahul Gandhi was removed in 24 hours following the verdict. “A bad time for Modi has started. The countdown against Modi has started,” said Bharathi. “We will ensure that we will bring back Rahul Gandhi to his post.”

Chief minister and DMK president M K Stalin had on the day of his disqualification on Friday condemned it as a “fascist act” and said that the BJP was scared of Rahul Gandhi especially after the impact of Bharat Jodo Yatra.

As news spread on March 23 about a trial court in Gujarat’s Surat convicting Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case over his “Modi surname” remark and sentencing him for two years, Alagiri led party functionaries to stage a rail roko in Kumbakonam. Parallelly, Congress MLAs protested during the on-going state assembly session in Chennai.

On his disqualification as Wayanad’s Member of Parliament, Rahul Gandhi said during a press conference in Delhi on Saturday that Modi “is scared of my next speech on Adani”. Gandhi also said his disqualification would help the party as it has given the Congress new ammunition. Gandhi announced then that he would continue to ask who invested ₹20,000 crore in the Adani Group through shell companies and what the Prime Minister’s relationship with Adani is.

BJP state vice president Narayanan Thirupathy said, “He should have appealed in the court if he is so concerned. I am surprised that, being a parliament member he is unaware about the law which says that the moment Rahul was sentenced for 2 years he got disqualified.”