Bengaluru, Aug. 21 -- The Karnataka BJP on Thursday made a dramatic electoral claim before the High Court, asserting that the Congress' "Corruption Rate Card" campaign cost it 40 Assembly seats in the 2023 elections and helped change the government in the State.
Arguing against petitions filed by Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee seeking quashing of a criminal defamation case, BJP counsel Vinod Kumar M said the newspaper advertisements were published repeatedly in the crucial days before polling and left the BJP with little time to counter the allegations.
"Because of the advertisement, we lost 40 seats," Mr Kumar told Justice M Nagaprasanna.
When the court aske...