A special MP-MLA court in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, on Monday acquitted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in an eight-year-old defamation case over remarks he made about Union Home Minister Amit Shah, ending a legal battle that began during the 2018 Karnataka election campaign.

Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, was present in court when the verdict was pronounced. As he left, supporters celebrated outside with drums, slogans and party flags, television images showed. His counsel, Kashi Prasad Shukla, told reporters outside the court: "We respectfully accept the court's decision, and the truth has ultimately prevailed."

The case, and the remark at its centre

The complaint was filed on 4 August 2018 by Vijay Mishra, a local BJP leader and former chairman of the Sultanpur District Cooperative Bank. It related to a remark Gandhi made at a campaign rally in Bengaluru ahead of the 2018 Karnataka Assembly elections, when Shah was the BJP president.

Mishra alleged that Gandhi had said that while the BJP professed a commitment to honest and clean politics, it was led by a party president who was an accused in a murder case. Gandhi denied the allegations, appeared before the court and was granted bail, and his counsel described the complaint as baseless. On Monday, the court held that Gandhi's remarks were not defamatory.

Gandhi travelled to Sultanpur via Lucknow for the final proceedings, amid heavy security, and recorded his statement in the case earlier this year. The verdict came a little over eight years after the complaint was filed.

Why the verdict matters now

The acquittal comes at a politically charged moment. Gandhi is leading a united opposition campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the controversial revision of voter lists, known as the Special Intensive Revision, an issue that has already brought protesters onto the streets of Delhi.

It also closes a chapter that carried real political risk. A conviction for criminal defamation can carry a prison term of up to two years, and in a separate 2023 case — over a remark about the "Modi surname" — a Gujarat court did convict Gandhi, briefly costing him his Lok Sabha seat until the Supreme Court stayed the conviction. The Sultanpur acquittal removes that risk in this case, although the complainant can challenge the verdict in a higher court.

For the Congress, the verdict is a morale boost at a time when the party is trying to keep the opposition united around the voter-list issue. For the BJP, which filed the original complaint, it is a setback in a case its leaders had pursued for eight years. Neither side has yet indicated whether an appeal will follow, and the political argument over the remarks themselves — made in the heat of a 2018 campaign — is unlikely to end with the court's order.