On Thursday, Rahul Gandhi, Member of Parliament from the Wayanad constituency in Kerala, was disqualified after a Surat court held him guilty in a 2019 criminal defamation case regarding his remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surname. While legal experts had speculated on the probability of his disqualification, the Lok Sabha secretariat confirmed the news today. Gandhi is not the first politician to lose office after a conviction. Many others, including Mohammad Faizal, J. Jayalalithaa, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Kamal Kishore Bhagat, and Asha Rani, have also been disqualified in the past.
It's interesting to note that Rahul Gandhi has previously criticised an ordinance that the UPA government introduced to prevent parliamentarians who have been convicted of a crime from being immediately disqualified. Now, it appears that he is being punished for this action. In 2013, the Supreme Court had struck down Section 8(4) of the Representation of The People Act, which stated that a sitting member of the House would not be disqualified from holding membership of the House if they filed an appeal within three months of a conviction for an offense punishable by more than two years in prison. However, this meant that lawmakers had to secure a stay on their conviction to avoid disqualification.
The UPA government had promulgated an ordinance to overturn the judgment and retain Section 8 (4) the same year, but Rahul Gandhi called the ordinance "complete nonsense." The government was extremely humiliated by this action and afterwards withdrew it.
The following is the list of politicians who were disqualified from their post after convictions:
1. Mohammad Faizal: MP, Lakshadweep
2. J. Jayalalithaa: Late Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu
3. Lalu Prasad Yadav: MP, Lok Sabha
4. Kamal Kishore Bhagat: MLA of All Jharkhand Students Union.
5. Suresh Halvankar: MLA of BJP.
6. T. M. Selvaganapathy: DMK's Rajya Sabha MP from TN.
7. Babanrao Gholap: MLA of Shiv Sena.
8. Enos Ekka: Jharkhand Party MLA.
9. Asha Rani: BJP MLA.
10. Rasheed Masood: Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP.
11. Jagdish Sharma: JD(U)’s Lok Sabha MP.
12. Pappu Kalani: MLA from Ulhasnagar.
13. Azam Khan: SP MLA.
14. Abdullah Azam Khan: SP MLA.
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