By YP Rajesh and Krishn Kaushik
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather were all prime ministers, can breathe a sigh of relief after the top court suspended his defamation conviction, paving the way for a return to parliament.
It is that potent lineage that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seek to attack when they say dynastic politics has no role in a democracy – Modi, in his speeches, often refers to Gandhi as a “prince”.
Gandhi, 53, lost his parliament seat in March after a magistrate’s court in the western state of Gujarat found him guilty of defaming Modi and others with the same name and sentenced him to two years in prison.
The jail term was suspended and he was given bail to appeal in a higher court but his petitions to suspend the conviction to allow him to return to parliament were rejected by lower courts. The Supreme Court suspended the conviction on Friday.
During the last four months, Gandhi helped his Congress party open talks with other opposition groups to push the idea of a grand alliance to take on the BJP in national elections next year.
The alliance was announced last month and labelled “INDIA” (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), a name credited to Gandhi’s suggestion of challenging the BJP’s nationalist platform, Congress leaders said.
Gandhi also campaigned for his party in elections in the key southern state of Karnataka in May which Congress won defeating the BJP in a rare jolt for the Hindu nationalists.
However, Gandhi has never been a minister in a federal or state government, has not led his Congress party to a general election victory, and quit as party chief after it was heavily defeated in the last parliamentary polls in 2019.
At the heart of his central role in opposition politics is the fact that his party has ruled India for 54 of its 75 years since independence from Britain. His father, grandmother and great-grandfather led the country for more than 37 of those 54 years.
Congress was the largest national political party with a footprint across the country of 1.4 billion people until it was overtaken by the BJP in 2014.
Even though Congress withered in 2019, winning less than 10% of the 545 seats in the lower house, it commanded nearly 20% of the vote – the largest for any opposition group – against the BJP’s 38%.
Congress is the ruling party, or the main opposition, in about half a dozen important states. With the largest national footprint after the BJP, Congress is also the fulcrum of the 26-member INDIA alliance.
LINEAGE AND LEGACY
Single at 53, Gandhi is known to be a fitness and martial arts enthusiast and has been seen cycling in New Delhi, accompanied by security men.
A member of the parliament since 2004, Gandhi’s attendance has been far below average. His frequent absences from the chamber, and the country, have been the focus of the media and drawn BJP accusations that he does not take politics seriously.
Outside parliament, he has often reminded his supporters of his family’s commitment and sacrifices, talking about the assassination of his grandmother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and of his father and ex-prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Starting in December 2022, Gandhi launched over a month-long 4,000-km cross-country march from India’s southern tip to Kashmir in the Himalayas in a bid to revive his party and refurbish his image in what he called a Bharat Jodo Yatra, or unify India march.
Although now a shadow of its former self, the Gandhi family – which includes Rahul’s Italian-born mother and former party chief Sonia and his sister Priyanka – still dominates Congress and commands fierce loyalty.
(Reporting by YP Rajesh and Krishn Kaushik; Editing by Nick Macfie)
