Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday lashed out at Rahul Gandhi who was disqualified as Lok Sabha MP recently, and said that the Congress leader should fight the “court’s action in the court” instead of speaking against Veer Savarkar.

“You are getting an ass to run a horse’s race…They really deserve to do some serious introspection…People of India would judge them for what they are…Fight Court’s action in the Court, you are invoking Mahabharat and Savarkar,” Puri said. On Friday, Rahul Gandhi was disqualified as a member of the Lok Sabha, a day after a Surat court sentenced him to two years imprisonment in a defamation case filed against him over his ‘Modi surname’ remark.

In April 2019, he made the remark “how come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname” at a Lok Sabha election rally at Kolar in Karnataka. The court approved Rahul Gandhi’s bail on a surety and stayed the sentence for 30 days to allow him to approach the higher courts.

After his disqualification, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that he was not Veer Savarkar and that he will not apologise.

Addressing a press conference in the national capital a day after he was convicted in a defamation case and subsequently disqualified from Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday “My name in not Savarkar, my name is Gandhi. Gandhis don’t apologise to anyone.”

He further stated that he is not scared of going to prison and that his disqualification from Parliament was aimed at distracting people from the Adani issue.

Meanwhile, Congress MPs in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha today attended the Parliament session by wearing black clothes.

Besides Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification, the Congress has since the start of the Budget session of Parliament been registering their protest over the Adani-Hindbenburg issue and questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s relation with the Adani Group. Congress had demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the Adani issue and staged protests in the Parliament’s ongoing Budget Session.

The ongoing second part of the Budget Session began on March 13 and will continue till April 6.