Rahul Gandhi was present in the court when the verdict was pronounced.
A huge number of Congress workers had assembled at various spots in Surat as a show of strength and support for Rahul Gandhi, with posters extolling him as ‘Sher-e-Hindustan’ (lion of Hindustan) and placards declaring that the “Congress will not bow before the dictatorship of the BJP” on display.
The case was filed against Gandhi for his alleged “how come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?” remarks on a complaint lodged by BJP MLA and former Gujarat minister Purnesh Modi. The Lok Sabha MP from Wayanad made the alleged remarks while addressing a rally at Kolar in Karnataka ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The court of chief judicial magistrate HH Varma had last week concluded hearing final arguments from both sides.
In his complaint, BJP MLA Purnesh Modi alleged that Gandhi, while addressing the poll rally in 2019, defamed the entire Modi community by purportedly saying, “How come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?”
Modi was a minister in the first tenure of the Bhupendra Patel government. The ruling party legislator was re-elected from the Surat west assembly seat in the December elections.
(With inputs from agencies)
