How Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from Lok Sabha is like Indira Gandhi's expulsion from Parliament 44 years ago

It remains to be seen what exactly happens to Rahul Gandhi's parliamentary seat - he was an MP from Wayanad in Kerala. (File photo by Sidheeq via Wikimedia Commons 4.0)

The swift and dramatic disqualification of Rahul Gandhi as a member of Parliament (MP) bears a close resemblance to what happened to Indira Gandhi in 1978. Just like Rahul Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, too, lost her membership of the Lok Sabha just days after returning from a trip to the UK. In an earlier piece we had recounted the similarities between the UK tours of Rahul Gandhi in March 2023 and that of Indira Gandhi in November 1978.

Taking that analysis forward, the similarity seems to extend even after they returned to India. Rahul Gandhi has been disqualified on the basis of a judgment by a Surat court in which he was found guilty of criminal defamation for a statement he made in 2019. The verdict came on 23 March, just over two weeks after he returned from London. In the case of Indira Gandhi, she was expelled from Lok Sabha and sent to jail on 19 December 1978, after returning from the UK three weeks before.

Indira Gandhi’s expulsion happened based on a resolution tabled by the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai on December 14, 1978, and voted by the house. During the debate she had told Parliament that she was prepared to go to jail. When the resolution was put to vote, 279 MPs voted in its favour, while 138 went against it. Lok Sabha thus became the first house of representatives to send a former Prime Minister to jail. Indira Gandhi became the first former Prime Minister to be hauled under the breach of privilege charge in a democracy. Her aide R.K. Dhawan and former CBI director D. Sen were also committed to jail along with her.

Also read: Look back into MPs and MLAs disqualified after conviction

Indira Gandhi was disqualified from Lok Sabha and served a seven-day term in Tihar jail. The disqualification or rather her expulsion from Lok Sabha was because she was held to be in contempt of Parliament and for committing breach of privilege. It was all related to the Emergency period wherein she allegedly intimidated four government officials who were investigating Sanjay Gandhi's business dealings. The charge was that these government officials were collecting information for a parliamentary reply and Indira Gandhi had come heavy on them thus obstructing them in carrying out official work.

Indira Gandhi went to Tihar jail straight from the Parliament House. She did not visit her residence, but instead her family members (her sons and daughters-in-law) brought her change of clothes and water/tea in a flask. She told her assembled supporters that she accepted the verdict of the House but insisted that the case against her had no merit, and smacked of political vendetta.

Sitting MPs from South India

While it remains to be seen what exactly happens to Rahul Gandhi’s parliamentary seat, it is interesting to note that just like him Indira Gandhi too was a MP from a constituency in South India.

Rahul Gandhi had lost the family stronghold of Amethi to Smriti Irani of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 election, while Indira Gandhi had lost from Rae Bareli in 1977. For both of them, constituencies in South India had ensured that they remained in the Lok Sabha. Rahul Gandhi won from Wayanad, in Kerala, while Indira Gandhi after being ousted from power in 1977, won a by-election from Chikmagalur in Karnataka in November 1978.

But the expulsion from Lok Sabha meant that just within two months of winning from Chikmagalur, the seat again became vacant. On 26 December 1978, Indira Gandhi was released from Tihar jail to a rousing welcome from her supporters. Congress-ruled states had witnessed an upsurge of support for her amidst the projection that Morarji Desai had gone too far in expelling her from Parliament when she had just won a by-election by a comfortable majority. Although Indira Gandhi maintained that she would stand again from Chikmagalur, she eventually decided against that.

Just a year after being expelled from Parliament, internal disagreements and splits made the Janata Party government fall and general elections were held in January 1980. Indira Gandhi once again stood for elections from the family seat of Rae Bareli and ditched Chikmagalur for Medak in Andhra Pradesh. She won from both seats and swept the Congress party to power. She ultimately decided to keep the Medak seat where she had won by a bigger majority compared to Rae Bareli.

It will be interesting to see what Rahul Gandhi does in the 2024 general election, but Narendra Modi is no Morarji Desai, and neither can the crisis-ridden Janata Party come close to the current-day BJP.

Also read: I'm fighting for voice of India, ready to pay any price: Rahul Gandhi