- Monday, April 28, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
In what is seen as a mark of defiance, India’s opposition Indian National Congress will hold a rally in Kolar in the southern Indian state of Karnataka which goes to polls on May 10 and its leader Rahul Gandhi will campaign there and kick off his ‘Satyameva Jayate (truth alone triumphs) Rally’.
Kolar has a significance for both the Congress and Gandhi as last week, the veteran leader was expelled from the Indian parliament after a court in the western state of Gujarat convicted him for allegedly defaming the surname Modi while targeting prime minister Narendra Modi and fugitive businessmen Lalit Modi and Nirav Modi at an election rally in the same place in southern Karnataka during the 2019 general elections.
“Why do all thieves have Modi as their surname?” Gandhi had remarked at the rally in Kolar, which also took place in April.
“Rahul Gandhi will return to Kolar and begin his Satyameva Jayate Rally. We had requested him to begin the election yatra from here. Where he had made this statement, and which the BJP condemned his statement, he will begin his mega rally from here,” DK Shivakumar, the chief of the Congress in Karnataka, was quoted as saying by NDTV.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saw it as an insult to the Other Backward Classes and Purnesh Modi, a BJP legislator in Gujarat, filed a case against Gandhi.
On Friday (24), a day after the conviction was announced, the Lok Sabha or Lower House of the Indian parliament disqualified Gandhi from his parliamentary constituency Wayanad in the southern state of Kerala. The opposition lashed out at the Modi government accusing it of targeting them ahead of next year’s general elections.
Leaders from 18 opposition parties slammed the government — a development the Congress considers a “silver lining” and a catalyst to unify the opposition against Modi.
The Election Commission of India on Wednesday (29) announced the date for the polls in Karnataka the result of which will be declared three days later.
