AHMEDABAD, India: An Indian state lawmaker who accused main opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi of defamation has objected to his appeal in a higher court, according to a filing on Tuesday.
Gandhi, 52, lost his parliamentary seat last month after he was found guilty of defamation by a lower court in the western state of Gujarat for a 2019 speech in which he referred to thieves as having the surname Modi.
Purnesh Modi, the lawmaker from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said Gandhi insulted the prime minister and other people with that surname through his comment, and that the lower court judgment was just and proper.
“The stay of conviction can be granted only in exceptional circumstances and in the rarest of the rare case. This is not an exceptional case in any way and a clear-cut case of defamation,” Modi’s lawyer Ketan Reshamwala told Reuters.
Two more defamation cases have been filed elsewhere against Gandhi for the same comment and he is due to appear in court in one of them in the eastern city of Patna on April 12.
Gandhi is at the center of opposition politics and the main target of Modi’s BJP even though Gandhi’s Congress party is a shadow of its former self and the BJP looks set to dominate the next general election.
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India lawmaker objects to opposition leader Gandhi’s appeal against defamation conviction
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India lawmaker objects to opposition leader Gandhi’s appeal against defamation conviction
- Gandhi, 52, lost his parliamentary seat last month after he was found guilty of defamation
- Two more defamation cases have been filed elsewhere against Gandhi for the same comment
Contaminated water kills 9 and hospitalizes 200 in India’s Indore city
NEW DELHI: At least nine people have died and more than 200 have been hospitalized in the central Indian city of Indore after a diarrhea outbreak that officials said was linked to contaminated drinking water, according to a lawmaker and local health authorities.
Kailash Vijayvargiya, a lawmaker, said nine people had died in Indore.
Indore’s chief medical officer, Madhav Prasad Hasani, told Reuters by phone that drinking water in the Bhagirathpur area of the city was contaminated due to a leak, and a water test had confirmed the presence of bacteria in the pipeline.
“I cannot say anything on the death toll but yes over 200 people from the same locality are undergoing treatment at different hospitals of the city. The final report of the water sample collected from the affected area is awaited,” Hasani said.
Shravan Verma, the district administrative officer, said authorities had deployed teams of doctors for door-to-door screening and were distributing chlorine tablets to help purify water.
“We have found one leakage point that could have contaminated the water and that point has been fixed,” Verma said, adding that officials had screened 8,571 people and identified 338 with mild symptoms.
Indore, in Madhya Pradesh state, has been named India’s cleanest city and has topped the national cleanliness rankings for the past eight years.
Kailash Vijayvargiya, a lawmaker, said nine people had died in Indore.
Indore’s chief medical officer, Madhav Prasad Hasani, told Reuters by phone that drinking water in the Bhagirathpur area of the city was contaminated due to a leak, and a water test had confirmed the presence of bacteria in the pipeline.
“I cannot say anything on the death toll but yes over 200 people from the same locality are undergoing treatment at different hospitals of the city. The final report of the water sample collected from the affected area is awaited,” Hasani said.
Shravan Verma, the district administrative officer, said authorities had deployed teams of doctors for door-to-door screening and were distributing chlorine tablets to help purify water.
“We have found one leakage point that could have contaminated the water and that point has been fixed,” Verma said, adding that officials had screened 8,571 people and identified 338 with mild symptoms.
Indore, in Madhya Pradesh state, has been named India’s cleanest city and has topped the national cleanliness rankings for the past eight years.
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