A convoy of vehicles transporting India’s opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was involved in a high-speed crash in northern India on Monday.
Mr Gandhi came away from the pile-up unharmed but several others were injured in the collision involving at least five vehicles, police said.
Indian TV channels carried dramatic images of an SUV that had suffered extensive damage after slamming into a speeding ambulance.
The incident took place around 10.15am on the Purvanchal Expressway in Uttar Pradesh, where Mr Gandhi was on his way to a court hearing in the city of Sultanpur.
A video of the incident showed several vehicles involved in a collision, along with an ambulance that seems to have been hit from behind. It was not immediately clear whether the ambulance was a part of Mr Gandhi’s convoy.
According to a preliminary report, a vehicle belonging to a member of the Congress party collided with the ambulance from behind.
Though the extent of injuries and the number of people injured is not known, a police official told the Press Trust of India that none of them was seriously hurt.
BREAKING 🚨
— Ankit Mayank (@mr_mayank) October 26, 2026
Rahul Gandhi’s convoy met with an accident while going to Sultanpur to attend a defamation case
RaGa is safe. He needs be more careful now, more than ever 🙏 pic.twitter.com/JZQVrvY5Jm
A police official said a private vehicle in the front of the convoy belonging to local members of the party suddenly applied the brakes for an unspecified reason, leading to a pile-up.
Confirming that Mr Gandhi was uninjured, a Congress spokesperson said his vehicle was also not directly involved in the collision.
“Rahul ji is completely safe,” said Anshu Awasthi. “It was a minor brush as his motorcade moved along the expressway.” The convoy resumed its journey soon after for Mr Gandhi’s appearance in a magistrate court in Sultanpur.
Mr Gandhi was later acquitted in court over a defamation case filed against him in 2018 for remarks against the then-president of the ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, Amit Shah.
The case was filed on the basis of a complaint by Vijay Mishra, a member of prime minister Narendra Modi’s party. According to the complainant, Mr Gandhi had referred to the home minister as being accused in a murder case.
“People in India forget that the president of BJP is a murder accused. That's the truth,” Mr Gandhi allegedly said, referring to Mr Shah. “The party that talks about honesty, decency, has a person who has been accused of murder as president.”
He was referring to Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a gangster who was killed in 2005 in what rights activists claimed was an extra-judicial killing by the authorities.
Mr Shah, who was an accused in the case, was acquitted in 2014.
The acquittal comes at a time when Mr Gandhi is leading a united opposition campaign against Mr Modi and the Chief Election Commissioner over a controversial revision of voter lists.
A court in Modi's home state of Gujarat had convicted Mr Gandhi in 2023 in a separate defamation case over a remark about people with the surname Modi, which briefly cost him his seat in parliament before he was later restored.
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