New Delhi: Senior Congress leader and former Lok Sabha MP Rahul Gandhi Saturday vacated his 12, Tughlak Lane bungalow, where he has lived for 19 years.
Talking to the media outside the bungalow, Gandhi called it the price he paid for “speaking the truth”.
“People of Hindustan gave me this house for 19 years, I want to thank them. It’s the price for speaking the truth. I am ready to pay any price for speaking the truth. Whatever the price is, I’ll pay it,” said Gandhi, adding that he’ll be staying with his mother, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, at 10, Janpath Road, “for some time”.
On being asked whether he will continue to question the government on unemployment and inflation, he said: “Mein usko dugna uthaoonga.”(I will double my pitch). It is the truth and someone has to say it”.
Gandhi has been told to vacate the bungalow allotted to him as a Member of Parliament after his disqualification from Lok Sabha over a criminal defamation case.
On 23 March, a chief judicial magistrate’s court in Surat found him guilty in a criminal defamation case and sentenced Gandhi to two years of jail for a speech he made at an election rally in 2019. Two days ago, a sessions court rejected his appeal against the sentence.
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Gandhis ‘not afraid’
Several Congress leaders came to support Gandhi, chief among them his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Speaking to the reporters outside the bungalow he was vacating, Priyanka said her brother was being punished for speaking the truth.
“Whatever my brother is saying is the truth. He spoke the truth about the government for which he is suffering,” she said, adding “But we’re not afraid”.
Meanwhile Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said Gandhi’s decision to move out of the bungalow shows “his respect for rules”. “The Court gave him (Rahul Gandhi) 30 days to appeal & the HC (High Court) or SC (Supreme Court) could still reinstate him, but his exemplary gesture to move out shows his respect for the rules,” Tharoor said in a tweet.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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