India’s top opposition figure Rahul Gandhi was expelled from Parliament after receiving a two-year jail sentence for defamation on Thursday, in what his supporters said was an attempt by the ruling party to silence its critics.
In a statement released Friday, the Lok Sabha Secretariat said that Gandhi, who represented the Wayanad parliamentary constituency of Kerala, stood disqualified from the membership due to his recent conviction.  [pdf]
The conviction resulted from a case related to Gandhi’s 2019 speech in which he mentioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi and two fugitive businessmen with the surname Modi while speaking of corruption.
“Why do all thieves have Modi as their surname?” Gandhi said at what was an election campaign in Karnataka while referring to diamond tycoon Nirav Modi, cricket executive Lalit Modi, and the prime minister….