Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday said the disqualification of Rahul Gandhi from the Lok Sabha was the darkest day in Indian democracy.

Kharge claimed that the BJP government "manipulated" the entire matter beginning from the filing of the defamation case against Gandhi, for his remarks during an election campaign speech back in 2019 in Kolar, Karnataka, and ending with his disqualification on the very next day of his conviction.

"The manipulations of the BJP government have to be pointed out and if you see the timeline of the whole case it would be clearer from that," he said.

The Congress chief further said that "such actions are condemnable, destroy the democratic norms of our country and push us towards a dictatorial regime".

Kharge was speaking here at the inauguration of the year-long centenary celebrations of the Vaikom Satyagraha, a renaissance movement against untouchability and linked to temple access.

The satyagraha, which began on March 30, 1924 and ended on November 23, 1925, was a non-violent agitation for access to the prohibited public environs of the Vaikom Temple in the Kingdom of Travancore.