While vacating his official residence today, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that he was ready to pay any price for speaking the truth.
"People of Hindustan gave me this house for 19 years, I want to thank them. It's the price for speaking the truth. I am ready to pay any price for speaking the truth…," Gandhi told reporters outside his bungalow before leaving in a car.
He said he was shifting his belongings to his mother Sonia Gandhi's residence at 10 Janpath, where he would stay for now.
Gandhi, who had been living in a government bungalow at 12 Tughlaq Lane since 2005, was disqualified from the Lok Sabha last month following his conviction and two-year sentence by a court in Surat, Gujarat, in a defamation case for a comment seen as insulting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and those who share his surname during an election rally in 2019.
The former MP lost his appeal in the case on Thursday which dashed any hopes that he could be reinstated before the deadline to vacate. Gandhi has said he was targeted by the ruling BJP for his forceful attacks on PM Modi.
The former Wayanad MP will now have to appeal in the Gujarat High Court or the Supreme Court against the Surat court's order to retain his Lok Sabha membership.
The Lok Sabha Secretariat had issued a notice to Gandhi on March 27 to vacate his bungalow by today, as per the rules that disqualify lawmakers convicted of crimes and sentenced to more than two years in jail.