Congress leader Rahul Gandhi reached Surat on Monday to file an appeal against a lower court ruling convicting him in a defamation case over his 2019 remark about the surname Modi.
The 52-year-old Congress leader reached Surat via a scheduled commercial flight along with sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. He was convicted by a court here and sentenced to prison for two years last month for a speech in which he linked PM Modi's last name with two fugitive businessmen, remarking how the "thieves" shared the same last name. The court had granted him bail for 30 days to appeal the verdict. A day later, he was disqualified as a member of the Lok Sabha.