A special court in Karnataka on Wednesday issued summons to Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah, his deputy DK Shivakumar and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case filed by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader
The case was filed by BJP’s state secretary S Keshavaprasad on May 9, over advertisements released by Congress before elections, ANI reported.

During its Karnataka election campaign, the grand old party had released advertisement featuring ‘corruption rate card’ depicting ‘scandals’ of the then ruling BJP government in the state between 2019 and 2023.

The Congress had alleged that the ruling BJP government looted ₹1.50 lakh crore in the last four years. “The cost for the CM post is ₹2,500 crores while the cost of a ministerial berth is ₹500 crore,” Congress had said in its ‘Corruption rate card’.

“40 per cent sarkara has looted over ₹1,50,000 crore from the people of Karnataka in the last 4 years,” it added.

The Election Commission had issued notice to the Congress in Karnataka, asking it to submit proof of its allegations. “It is a fair assumption that INC possesses the material/empirical/verifiable evidence based on which these specific/explicit ‘facts’ have been published, an action which can fairly be assessed to embed knowledge, motive and intent to do so by the author”, the EC notice had read.

The Congress had fought the election over the issue of alleged corruption during the BJP rule in Karnataka. The party won 136 seats, ousting the saffron party from the lone southern state it had been ruling.