A man who tried to stop a member of India's influential Gandhi family from marrying by claiming he was already married to her was sentenced to five years in prison, newspapers said Thursday.
Rama Krishna Gaud filed a lawsuit in January seeking to halt Priyanka Gandhi's wedding to a local businessman on the grounds he had married her in 1991.Gandhi - the daughter of Rajiv Gandhi, granddaughter of Indira Gandhi and great-granddaughter of Jawaharlal Nehru - denied the claim and married Robert Vadra amid much media attention Feb. 5.
Although Gandhi family members currently hold no major office, they are immensely influential in the Congress Party, which Rajiv Gandhi headed until his assassination in 1991. Before that, his mother, Indira, and his grandfather, Nehru, led Congress governments.
Gaud was convicted Monday of falsely claiming he was married, and sentenced Wednesday by Magistrate Prem Kumar, papers said.
"Gaud has abused the process of the court to insult womanhood," Kumar said. "A severe and deterrent punishment is called for."
Last year, police briefly detained a New Delhi professor for deluging Gandhi, 25, with love letters for six years. Security guards apprehended another man who tried to approach her with recordings of 10 songs he composed for her.