Court summons Rahul Gandhi and Siddaramaiah over '40 percent commission' allegations against BJP govt

BENGALURU: A court in Karnataka has summoned Congress leaders, namely Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and Rahul Gandhi over allegations of '40 percent commission' against the previous BJP government.

The leaders have been asked to appear before the special MP/MLA court on March 28. The complaining pertaining to this was filed by Vinod Kumar, a lawyer in BJP's legal unit.

The commission allegations were levelled against the BJP by Congress as part of the campaigning during the assembly elections last year.

A QR code on the posters pasted by Congress around Karnataka took users to a '40 per cent Sarkara' website to highlight how a 40 per cent commission rate allegedly became the norm under the BJP regime. The Karnataka High Court had last week asked the state government to complete the probe into 40 per cent commission allegations within six weeks.

Three months after the Congress government came to power in Karnataka, a judicial inquiry has been ordered into the allegations against the former BJP government. Last week, Union Minister Prahlad Joshi had slammed the Karnataka government and accused the Congress administration of taking 50 per cent commissions instead of 40 percent.