Pune: In a big turn of events in an ongoing criminal defamation case, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi told a Pune court that he is afraid of “harm, wrongful implication, or other forms of targeting” because of his political activity and the complainant’s family history.
Gandhi was sued for what he said about Vinayak Savarkar, a Hindu nationalist. Milind Pawar, Gandhi’s lawyer, presented a motion during a court hearing on Wednesday that brought up a number of issues.
The application drew the court’s attention to recent comments made by BJP officials in public. Pawar said that BJP leader R.N. Bittu labeled Gandhi a “terrorist” and that BJP leader Tarvinder Marwah allegedly made a “open threat,” saying that Gandhi “may face the same fate like his grandmother.”
Pawar further said that the person who complained, Satyaki Savarkar, hasn’t properly revealed his family background. According to a previous application made by Gandhi’s lawyer, Satyaki’s mother, Himani Savarkar, was the daughter of Gopal Godse, who was Nathuram Godse’s brother. Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi. This means that Nathuram Godse would be Satyaki’s mother’s grand-uncle.
The application said that Gandhi’s safety could be at jeopardy because of this maternal ancestry and the “documented history of violent and anti-constitutional tendencies” that went along with it. The plea also compared the killing of Mahatma Gandhi to the case, saying it was a “calculated outcome of a conspiracy, rooted in a specific ideology,” and asked the court to make sure that “history must not be allowed to repeat itself.”
The appeal further said that the threats were connected to Gandhi’s recent political actions, such as his claims of “vote chori” and his criticism of the BJP. He said that these acts have made his political enemies angry. The court has looked at what Gandhi said about the threats he thought were being made against his safety.
Satyaki Savarkar launched this defamation complaint when Rahul Gandhi talked about an event in Savarkar’s writings in March 2023 in London. In the event, Savarkar and others allegedly attacked a Muslim guy and felt “pleasurable.” Satyaki Savarkar has said that there is no such paragraph in Savarkar’s published works and is trying to get Gandhi convicted of defamation.