India’s opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has been sentenced to two years in prison after a court found him guilty of defamation for a speech in which he referred to thieves as having the surname Modi.

Gandhi was present on Thursday at the court in Surat, a city in Gujarat, which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state.

He was given bail and the sentence was suspended for 30 days.

Gandhi would appeal against the verdict in a higher court, the president of his Congress party said on Twitter, calling Modi’s government “cowardly and dictatorial”.

“The Modi government is a victim of political bankruptcy,” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said.

The criminal defamation case was filed against Gandhi by a leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after a speech during the 2019 general election in which he referred to the surname Modi and asked how all thieves had the surname.

“The court has found Rahul Gandhi’s comment to be defamatory. He has been sentenced to two years in jail,” Ketan Reshamwala, advocate for complainant Purnesh Modi, said.

Gandhi said in court he had made the comment to highlight corruption and not against any community.

Gandhi is one of the main opposition leaders in the country who will go up against Modi when he seeks his third term as prime minister in 2024.

Gandhi’s once-dominant Congress controls less than 10 per cent of the elected seats in parliament’s lower house and has lost badly to the BJP in two successive general elections, most recently in 2019.

Modi remains India’s most popular politician by a substantial margin and is widely expected to win a third victory at the next general election in 2024.

-Reuters