12 convicted MPs, MLAs disqualified since 2013, Rahul Gandhi not the only one

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, March 27

Parliament and state assembly records reveal that 12 lawmakers — MPs and MLAs — have lost their house memberships following conviction in offences where the minimum sentence is not less than two years, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is not alone in the space.

At a time when the Congress is painting Gandhi’s disqualification from Lok Sabha following two year sentencing in a defamation case as “vendetta politics”, records show 12 lawmakers have been in the same boat as Gandhi, starting 2013, the year when the apex court famously ruled that MPs and MLAs convicted in offences with not less than two years punishment would stand automatically disqualified from their house memberships.

The judgment had struck down a relief under Section 8 (4) of the Representation of People’s Act which gave convicted MPs and MLAs three months to appeal and saved their house memberships in the interregnum.

Among those disqualified as a result of the 2013 SC judgment are — RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, then Lok Sabha MP from Saran, convicted in September 2013 for five years in the fodder scam; Jagdish Sharma, a Lok Sabha MP of the JDU from Jahanabad, disqualified following his September 2013 conviction for four years in the fodder scam.

Congress Party’s Rajya Sabha MP Rasheed Masood was convicted in September 2013 for four years in an MBBS seat scam and was disqualified.

DMK’s TM Selvaganapathy resigned himself fromRajya Sabha membership after being convicted in April 2014 for two years in the cremation shed scam.

Then CM of Tamil Nadu J Jayalalitha who was MLA from RK Nagar in Tamil Nadu was disqualified from state assembly upon her conviction in February 2017.

Jayalalitha was convicted for four years and fined Rs 100 crore in disproportionate assets.

Most recently, NCP MP from Lakshwdweep Mohammad Faizal was disqualified from LS upon a January 2023 conviction in an attempted murder case. Faizal has secured a stay on his conviction from the Kerala High Court and has challenged his LS disqualification as per law — a route available to Rahul Gandhi as well.

MLAs who lost their assembly memberships upon conviction since 2013 are — All Jharkhand Students Union’sKamal Kishore Bhagat convicted in January 2015 for attempt to murder; BJP MLA from Maharashtra’s Ichalkaranji convicted in May 2014 for three years in a power theft case; Shiv Sena’s Deolali MLA Babanrao Gholap convicted in March 2014 in a disproportionate assets case; Jharkhand Party’s Enos Ekka, MLA from Kolebira, convicted in 2014 and sentenced for life; BJP’s Madhya Pradesh MLA from Bijawar, Asha Rani, covictedin November 2013 for abetting suicide of her maid; and SP’s Abdullah Azam Khan, disqualified recently upon conviction on February 13, 2023 under Section 353 IPC.

While the Congress has launched a nationwide protest on Rahul Gandhi’s qualification, Union minister Piyush Goyal today asked, “One fails to understand why the top lawyers of Congress did not advise him wisely in the Surat trial court defamation matter.”

“This looks like an internal Congress conspiracy,” said Goyal adding: “Rahul Gandhi has no right to consider himself above the law but the fact is their senior leader Pramod Tiwari actually said yesterday that the trial court should have considered the Gandhi family legacy while deciding Rahul’s sentence of two years.”