Opening up on his disqualification as a member of the Lok Sabha, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said he was "the first to be given the highest punishment for a defamation case".

Taking questions from journalists during a free-wheeling conversation at the National Press Club in Washington on Thursday, Rahul invoked the timing of his disqualification from Parliament, claiming that it came after his speech on the Adani-Hindenburg row in the Lok Sabha.

"...I asked a rhetorical question... I am the first person in India to be given the highest punishment for a defamation case, in history, since 1947. Nobody has been given a maximum sentence that too on the first offence.

That should explain what's going on to you and my disqualification happens quite interestingly after my speech about Adani in Parliament, so you can do the math," Rahul said.