- BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has sought Rahul Gandhi's disqualification from Lok Sabha
- Rahul Gandhi was disqualified in 2023 due to a defamation conviction
- Congress MP Renuka Chaudhary defended Rahul Gandhi and criticized Dubey's motives
BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has initiated a formal process seeking to disqualify Congress MP Rahul Gandhi from the Lok Sabha. Dubey's move came amid acrimonious exchanges between Rahul Gandhi and BJP MPs over several controversial issues, including the alleged circulation of former army chief General MM Naravane's unpublished book.
Yesterday, the Congress MP who is also the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, aimed directly at Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri as he made allegations against the former diplomat over the Epstein Files disclosures.
After filing paperwork to initiate action against Rahul Gandhi, Dubey said the Congress MP seems to be connected to foreign powers.
"Who is funding Rahul Gandhi, whose motive is to destroy the nation? How did he get the unpublished book? The Lok Sabha must reject Rahul Gandhi's membership," Dubey said.
"This is not that for the first time that Shri Rahul Gandhi has made efforts to create controversy with the objective of defaming the government - be it defence, finance, commerce, external affairs - but Shri Rahul Gandhi has the uncanny knack of fomenting the public sentiments by raising unsubstantiated and unethical aspects in parliament as well as other public fora," Dubey said in the notice.
"The genesis of such recalcitrant attitude of Shri Rahul Gandhi is his being an active conduit of 'Soros Foundation', which is notorious, world-wide, in de-stabilizing various countries for the benefit of their client states. Shri Rahul Gandhi, in his speech on 11 February, 2026 has, referred to various Indian corporates and painted a distorted picture with an attempt to depict that our banking system has collapsed due to their connivance with big business houses," the notice said.
"All these attempts of Shri Rahul Gandhi are nothing else but an attempt to destabilize our country from within - by way of masquerading in the coveted post of Leader of Opposition."
Not A First For Rahul Gandhi
This is not the first time Rahul Gandhi runs the risk of getting disqualified from parliament. In March 2023, he was disqualified from parliament following his conviction in a defamation case for a remark seen as an insult to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Rahul Gandhi was convicted by a court and sentenced to prison for two years in Gujarat for a 2019 speech in which he linked PM Modi's last name with two fugitive businessmen, remarking how the "thieves" shared the same last name.
While not exactly the same charge as the one that led to his previous disqualification, his attacks on Hardeep Puri over Epstein Files could become defamatory, political analysts said.
Congress MP Renuka Chaudhary, coming to Rahul Gandhi's defence, took swipes at Dubey as someone who wanted to become a Union minister.
"Nishikant Dubey wants to become a minister in the government, which is why he is talking about cancelling Rahul Gandhi's membership. This makes no sense," Chaudhary said.
She added that at one point there was talk of pushing a privilege motion against her over bringing her dog to parliament grounds.
"Do BJP MPs understand what a privilege motion is?" she said.
Congress MP KC Venugopal said the BJP's double standards can be seen from how Rahul Gandhi's remarks were removed from the proceedings, while "similar remarks" made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were allowed to remain.
"Last time, I accepted Rahul Gandhi's membership, but the people elected him by a bigger margin than Modi. We don't care about any notice. If you want, hang me," Venugopal said.
BJP chief whip in the Lok Sabha, Sanjay Jaiswal, has asked the Speaker to expunge several remarks made by Rahul Gandhi during the debate on the Union Budget. Jaiswal said the Congress MP used "unparliamentary" expressions and levelled "baseless allegations" against PM Modi and the Centre during his speech.
The Delhi Police have added criminal conspiracy charges to its probe into the alleged circulation of former General Naravane's unpublished book. Their Special Cell has questioned the Penguin India team, sources said, adding they have issued notice seeking answers to 15 questions.
The publisher's team replied to some of the questions, and sought more time to respond to the rest, sources said.
