Greater than a yr earlier than India’s subsequent election, the marketing campaign has awoken with a startling political defenestration: the conviction and eviction from parliament of Rahul Gandhi, prime minister Narendra Modi’s chief political rival.

A courtroom in Surat in Modi’s dwelling state Gujarat final month convicted the inheritor to the household behind the opposition Congress celebration of defamation over remarks in a 2019 speech during which he requested “why all thieves have the identify Modi”.

The 2-year jail sentence handed to Gandhi was sufficient for parliament, managed by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata celebration, to disqualify him only a day later. Final week he was ordered to vacate his official bungalow in New Delhi in a transfer that Indians, relying on their political sympathies, watched with both Schadenfreude or dismay.

Folks at the moment are debating whether or not his expulsion from parliament will find yourself serving to Modi by eradicating Gandhi as a believable prime ministerial candidate, or truly construct him up as a political martyr.

Modi critics who see the authorized case as heavy handed say it may find yourself aiding his rival. Gandhi’s grandmother Indira Gandhi was ejected from her personal parliamentary seat in 1978 and briefly jailed for breach of privilege and contempt of parliament. The transfer generated public sympathy that helped her win a fourth time period in workplace in 1980.

“This isn’t essentially a foul factor for Rahul Gandhi,” says Gilles Verniers, a senior fellow with the Centre for Coverage Analysis in New Delhi. “It depends upon what he’s going to do subsequent.”

Some have described the courtroom case and hasty rustication of India’s most distinguished opposition determine as a decisive step in a slide in the direction of authoritarianism on the planet’s greatest democracy, the place they are saying establishments are being bent to satisfy political ends.

Modi’s critics have questioned the premise of the defamation case, which was introduced not by the prime minister himself, however by a neighborhood politician with the identical surname — Purnesh Modi — who was not talked about in Gandhi’s remarks.

The BJP insists due strategy of regulation has been adopted.

The US, which metes out any criticism of India in meek phrases at a time when the 2 international locations are drawing nearer of their opposition to China, mentioned final week it was “watching Mr Gandhi’s case in Indian courts” and emphasised the 2 international locations’ “shared dedication to democratic values, together with freedom of expression”.

Nonetheless, some in India imagine Modi and the BJP are intentionally establishing the election as a two-man contest between the favored incumbent and Gandhi, a politician who has in previous proved a weak and gaffe-prone campaigner. Gandhi shall be barred from working in 2024 if he fails to get his conviction overturned on attraction.

The BJP beat Congress within the final two elections in 2014 and 2019 on the again of resurgent Hindu nationalism and disenchantment with the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty’s file in workplace, which was marred by corruption scandals.

Gandhi and his household’s inherited political privilege has lengthy been a straightforward goal for the ruling celebration, headed by a person with humble origins nearer to these of most Indian voters than to Gandhi’s.

“The extra you garbage Modi, the extra individuals really feel sympathetic to Modi,” mentioned Mohandas Pai, chair of Aarin Capital, a enterprise capital agency based mostly in Bangalore. “Modi has achieved quite a bit for individuals, he’s not from a distinguished household, and for those who abuse his background, his statements, his gown, individuals don’t prefer it.”

Final week BJP officers launched a cartoon video deriding Gandhi as a shahzada, an Urdu phrase for “prince” with Persian origins, and exhibiting him sporting a crown and being fanned and fed grapes by courtiers, whereas slinging mud at opponents.

However Gandhi, who stepped down as Congress president after the celebration’s second consecutive loss in 2019, has been rebuilding his nationwide profile in current months. His marketing campaign has included a trans-India trek and trenchant assaults on the prime minister’s ties to Gautam Adani, the industrialist whose corporations are below assault from a brief vendor.

Congress mentioned final week that Gandhi deliberate to attraction the defamation conviction, however his attorneys had been making ready “fastidiously” due to two different comparable circumstances he faces. On Sunday, celebration sources confirmed that he deliberate to journey to Surat on Monday to file a plea.

Gandhi’s youthful sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress’s normal secretary, has additionally made combative speeches in current days, demonstrating the dynasty’s endurance — and the potential presence of one other household inheritor. Most Indians, whether or not they assume the household are embattled or entitled, will most likely agree the Gandhis usually are not going away quickly.

john.reed@ft.com