Unqualified success for BJP govt in Karnataka, says Congress

Congress called the Yeddyurappa government’s trust vote win in Karnataka on Thursday an “unqualified success”.

M Veerappa Moily, Union law minister and former chief minister of the state, and Congress spokesman Manish Tewari highlighted the narrow escape the 28-month-old government had in its second successive trust vote.

Moily, who called the first trust vote a “farce”, agreed that the second one was an improvement, but said, “In any case, this is also transitory in nature. No government that survives with such a slender majority and through such means can be stable.”

Calling the trust vote “vitiated and subverted”, Tewari said, “The entire effort of BJP has been to convert a minority government into a majority.

“For the present, they seem to have succeeded, but the result is subject to the decision of the high court regarding disqualification of 16 MLAs.”

The Congress spokesman said the interests of fairness and justice would have been served well if the Karnataka assembly speaker had accepted leader of opposition Siddaramaiah’s suggestion of deferring the vote of confidence till the high court verdict.

He maintained that the political crisis in Karnataka had nothing to do with Congress. “BJP has huge internal problems and these are at the root of the present instability in the state [Karnataka],” he said.