A Pune court plea citing a “threat” to Rahul Gandhi’s life was filed by his lawyer without his approval. Gandhi has instructed that the statement be withdrawn immediately, saying he never agreed to it.
New Delhi: On August 13, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi decided to withdraw a written statement that his lawyer had filed in a Pune court, which claimed there was a threat to his life. Party leader Supriya Shrinate, in a post on X on Wednesday, said,
“Rahul Gandhi ji’s lawyer had filed a written statement in court citing a threat to his life without consulting him or obtaining his consent. Rahul ji strongly disagrees with this. Therefore, tomorrow his lawyer will withdraw this written statement from the court.”
Earlier in the day, Gandhi’s lawyer, advocate Milind Pawar, had filed an application in a defamation case connected to Gandhi’s remarks on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
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In the plea, the lawyer claimed that Gandhi faced “grave apprehensions” about his safety due to “recent political issues raked up” by him and because of his earlier comments on Savarkar.
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The application also alleged that the complainant in the case, Satyaki Savarkar, is a direct descendant of Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, and that there is a
“documented history of violence and anti-constitutional tendencies linked to the complainant’s lineage.”
It further stated that Savarkar could try to
“derive undue advantage from the existing political circumstances, with an intent to exert influence upon, or bring extraneous pressure to bear on, this Court, particularly in light of the fact that the followers of the complainant’s late so-called grandfather are presently in political power.”
The plea also said,
“Satyaki Savarkar has categorically admitted that he is a direct descendant through his maternal family lineage of Nathuram Godse and Gopal Godse, the principal accused in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation. That assassination was not an act of impulse; it was the calculated outcome of a conspiracy, rooted in a specific ideology, culminating in deliberate violence against an unarmed person.”
In the application, Gandhi further mentioned,
“There exists a clear, reasonable, and substantial apprehension that Rahul Gandhi may face harm, wrongful implication, or other forms of targeting.”
He added,
“There is a history of violence associated with the complainant’s lineage. History should not be allowed to repeat itself,”
referring to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi.
Gandhi also claimed that his “vote chori” remarks had upset political opponents. He cited “two public threats” from BJP leaders—Union Minister Ravneet Singh Bittu, who called him the “number one terrorist of the country,” and BJP leader Tarvinder Singh Marwah.
This defamation case comes from a speech Gandhi gave on November 17, 2022, during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Akola, Maharashtra.
In that speech, he allegedly called Savarkar a “British servant” who was given a pension by the colonial government. Satyaki Savarkar filed the criminal defamation complaint after this, providing the court with a CD and transcript of the speech as evidence.
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