New Delhi: The Karnataka political high drama drew sharp reactions from politicians across parties on Tuesday with the Congress calling it 'heinous' horse-trading.
The Congress-JD(S) coalition government had collapsed on Tuesday after chief minister H D Kumaraswamy lost the trust vote.
Immediately after the government lost the vote, the Congress accused the BJP of carrying out "one of the most heinous" horse-trading the country has ever seen and said it will hold nationwide protests against the "immoral political destabilisation".
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted, "From its first day, the Cong-JDS alliance in Karnataka was a target for vested interests, both within and outside, who saw the alliance as a threat and an obstacle in their path to power. Their greed won today".
"Democracy, honesty and the people of Karnataka lost," he said.
Reacting to the development, Congress general secretary and Rahul's sister Priyanka Gandhi said one day the BJP will discover that everything cannot be bought, everyone cannot be bullied and every lie is eventually exposed.
"Until then I suppose, the citizens of our country will have to endure their unbridled corruption, the systematic dismantling of institutions that protect the people's interests and the weakening of
a democracy that took decades of toil and sacrifice to build," she said.
Congress' AICC in-charge of Karnataka K C Venugopal said the "subversion of coalition government" in the state carried out by the BJP is "one of the most heinous" political horse-trading the country has ever witnessed.
It was done by the "nefarious" joint efforts of the central government, governor, Maharashtra government and the BJP leadership, he said.
"BJP facilitated this dirty-dealing political drama by offering a huge amount of black money and ministerial berths to the defected MLAs. Along with this, the BJP also misused central agencies like
enforcement and Income Tax for blackmailing and horse-trading," Venugopal tweeted.
A video of BJP leaders allegedly offering money to the defected MLAs for destabilising the coalition government and carrying out political horse-trading has been shown even in the legislative assembly, he said.
The Congress and the JD(S) fought in the floor of the house, Supreme Court as well as in the street to uphold the democratic morals and values, Venugopal said.
All the MLAs, who stood with the party, and workers who fought for upholding political morality in the state deserve huge respect, he said.
Although the BJP could get an upper hand in the legislative assembly in terms of the number of MLAs, the Congress-JD(S) had earned the moral victory, Venugopal claimed.
In a statement, he also said political morality and basic democratic values got defeated by the "unscrupulous political horse-trading" of the BJP in Karnataka. "The sabotage of a duly-elected government in Karnataka carried out by the BJP is one of the most heinous and subversive instances of
blatant political horse-trading the country has ever witnessed," he said.
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