A court in western India has found opposition leader Rahul Gandhi guilty of defamation for a speech he made in 2019 in which he referred to thieves as having the surname Modi, and sentenced him two years in prison. 

Mr Gandhi was present at the court in Surat, a city in Gujarat, which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state.

He was given bail and the sentence was suspended for 30 days.

The criminal defamation case was filed against Mr Gandhi by a leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), after a speech during the 2019 general election.

In the speech, he referred to the surname Modi and asked how all thieves had the surname.

"The court has found Rahul Gandhi's comment to be defamatory," Ketan Reshamwala, advocate for complainant Purnesh Modi, said.

"The court found him guilty under IPC section, 499 read with 500.

Mr Gandhi said in court that he had made the comment to highlight corruption and was not against any community.

He is one of the main opposition leaders in the country who will go up against Mr Modi when he seeks his third term as prime minister in 2024.

Mr Gandhi's once-dominant congress controls fewer than 10 per cent of the elected seats in parliament's lower house.

It has lost badly to the BJP in two successive general elections, most recently in 2019.

Mr Modi remains India's most popular politician by a substantial margin and is widely expected to win a third victory at the next general election in 2024.

Mr Gandhi, 52, is the son of Rajiv Gandhi, India's sixth prime minister who was assassinated in 1991 at the age of 46.

His Italian-born mother, Sonia Gandhi, took over as Indian National Congress leader in 1998, seven years after Rajiv Gandhi's death.

Rahul Gandhi's grandmother Indira Gandhi was India's third prime minister, who also died by assassination in 1984 at the age of 66, four years into her second stint as leader.

Reuters/ABC