Rahul Gandhi is a threat! So think the right-wing group and its supporters. Everyone has the right to freedom of speech as a constitutional right. But when this right is compromised by abusing it to attack people or defame them, then there is something seriously wrong.

Implicating Rahul Gandhi in umpteen petty court cases and dragging him to courts in remote areas with flimsy charges is a sinister and well-planned move. The agenda is to defame him, to arrest his progress as a national leader. It is a 'do or die' agenda.

The problem is that Rahul is a threat to the right wing's many plans and policies, which he considers anti-people and anti-development. He minces no words. He calls a spade a spade. He calls on the ruling party to answer the questions he raises as the Leader of the Opposition, both in and out of Parliament.

Rahul has a national stature. He is not the Pappu of the mocking saffron minions. They can't stomach his assertions supported by facts and figures. Fifty-five-year-old Rahul is not a novice in Indian politics. He is the 12th Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. He speaks what he means.

He speaks for the Dalits and the downtrodden. He advocates for the rights of the persecuted minorities. He raises questions about why the Indian economy is being rented out to Adani and Ambani, who, he says, are remotely controlling and taking the nation for a ride by capitalising on their cosy relationship with the ruling party. He questions ED and EC's misadventures.

"Rahul has made his intent clear. He wants to be seen as the Leader of the people who will take up cudgels on their behalf against a government that he claims is unfeeling towards the problem of the common man. And it is only apt that he should be the Leader of the Opposition in the new Lok Sabha, for he has firmly established himself as the face of the Opposition and the main challenger of Modi." (Soni Mishra, The Week)

During his Bharat Jodo Yatra, on December 16, 2022, he raised a point about why no question is raised about the Galwan clash of 2020 and the Indian territory having been ceded to China. This public statement irked a Supreme Court judge who went to the extent of questioning his Indianness. The context was Rahul Gandhi's statement, "People will ask about Bharat Jodo Yatra ... but will not ask a single question about China capturing 2,000 sq.km of Indian land, killing 20 Indian soldiers, and thrashing our soldiers in Arunachal Pradesh ... Don't pretend people don't know."

The logical response of the judge hearing the complaint case before him should have been to ask him to prove his point, rather than saying that "a true Indian will not take such a statement." Instead, the judicial officer's reaction made many wonder what he was aiming at. No wonder, even in a teashop, the reaction to the Court's averment had its resounding vibrations. Someone was heard saying: Is freedom of speech dead in India?

News about the Chinese incursion was in the public domain. According to The Wire, India report, "On June 15, 2020, Chinese and Indian troops engaged in a clash at the Galwan valley in Ladakh, leading to the death of 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese soldiers and heightened tensions. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in televised remarks soon afterwards that "neither has anyone intruded into our border, nor is anyone intruding, nor have any of our posts been captured by someone."

A part of this was redacted in the official press release that followed. The external affairs ministry had claimed that the clash occurred after "the Chinese side sought to erect a structure in the Galwan valley on our side of the LAC [Line of Actual Control]." So, because Rahul Gandhi raised this point, he was censured and pummeled.

To add even more flavour to the Rahul controversy, it is reported that Amit Malavya, national convenor of the IT cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party, stated that the Court should take suo motu cognisance of Priyanka Gandhi's statement supporting her brother for his statement. This only shows to what unethical level we can drag our democratic set-up by minions of a devious agenda.

It is good to remember that the Leader of the Opposition in the UK is called the Shadow Prime Minister. The opposition party is the Shadow Cabinet. But, over here in India, for the present ruling dispensation, the Parliamentary Opposition has little voice. Questions of national importance raised by the Opposition are sidetracked or submerged in shouting matches or deleted from the record. The Opposition leader is derecognised as a political imbecile.

Political 'freemasons' are put behind him to put up false or petty cases against him to make him run from court to court. The crawling media intones 'His Master's Voice' in demeaning and defaming Rahul Gandhi. No wonder, Rahul courageously told the 'godi media' that its bounden duty, as the fourth pillar of democracy, is to be fair and impartial and not to intone the signature tune of the powers that are. He also warned that it would learn a lesson in time.

It has been the vulgar game of the BJP to defame Rahul's grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, for all the ills the nation is facing. Now, alongside Nehru, Rahul is being targeted to defame and destabilise him. Vulgar politics, to say the least!