A day after he resigned as the Congress president, Rahul Gandhi said here on Thursday that he was being “attacked” but he was “enjoying” it and that he would continue to fight the ideological battle with the BJP and Sangh Parivar “ten times” more fiercely than he did during the previous years.
Talking to media persons minutes after he pleaded “not guilty” and was granted bail by a Mumbai court in a defamation case filed against him by an RSS worker, Gandhi said: “This is an ideological battle. I am standing with the poor, farmers and labourers. I am being attacked. I am enjoying it”.
Asked about his resignation as the Congress president, Gandhi said: “Whatever I wanted to say, I stated in my resignation yesterday”.
When reporters persisted with him and asked him as what he planned to do next, Gandhi said: “My battle will continue... It will go on more aggressively. The battle will be ten times more fierce than I waged during the previous years”.
Earlier, Gandhi and CPM leader Sitaram Yechuri appeared before a Mazgaon metropolitan magistrate’s court nd CPM leader Sitaram Yechury in response to summons issued to them in February in connection with a defamation case filed by Dhrutiman Joshi, a lawyer and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker, for allegedly linking journalist Gauri Lankesh's killing with the "BJP-RSS ideology".
After the court read out Joshi’s complaint asked them if they were pleading guilty or not guilty to the allegations made by the complainant, both Gandhi and Yechuri pleaded “not guilty” in the defamation.
Subsequently, the Mazgaon court granted bail to both Gandhi and Yechuri a surety amount of Rs 15,000 each and also granted them permanent exemption from appearance before it during hearings in the case. The court has posted the matter for next hearing on September 21.
Former Congress MP Eknath Gaikwad stood as surety for Gandhi. Gandhi and Yechury then signed the necessary documents and left the court premises.
In his complaint filed in 2017 immediately after Gauri Lankesh’s killing, Joshi had alluded to tweets put out by Gandhi allegedly blaming the RSS and its ideology for the journalist’s murder. “For a mere political score, the accused (Gandhi) had unnecessarily dragged the name of RSS and it is a move to rake up negative sentiments in the minds of people against the RSS,” Joshi’s complaint said.