A Bengaluru court on Friday granted bail to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case filed by the Bharatiya Janata Party in connection with Congress advertisements alleging that the previous Karnataka government took bribes from contractors, reported The Indian Express.
Gandhi appeared before the court in compliance with a summons issued on June 1. On that day, the court had granted bail to Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister Shivakumar after they appeared before the judge.
The complaint in the matter was filed by BJP leader S Keshava Prasad against Gandhi, Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar in May 2023 over campaign advertisements and slogans of the Congress during the 2023 Karnataka Assembly election.
The complaint objected to the Congress’ allegations that the BJP government, which was in power from 2019 to 2023, was charging a 40% commission or bribes from contractors for undertaking public works.
The BJP alleged that the Congress was spreading false advertisements against its members, including Basavaraj Bommai, who was Karnataka’s chief minister at the time.
Gandhi is also facing a defamation case in Pune, which has been filed by Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar’s grand-nephew Satyaki Savarkar. The case is about the Congress leader’s alleged remarks about VD Savarkar in a 2023 speech made in London.
According to the complaint, Gandhi claimed in a speech that the Hindutva ideologue had written in a book that he and five to six of his friends once beat up a Muslim man and felt happy about it. The complainant, however, claimed that VD Savarkar never wrote such a book, nor did such an incident occur.
On May 30, a Pune court directed Gandhi to appear before it in the case on August 19.
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