It was Rs 1,000-crore operation by BJP: Karnataka Congress chief Dinesh Gundu Rao claims after Kumaraswamy’s ouster

Karnataka Congress chief Dinesh Gundu Rao has blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the fall of the coalition government in the state. In an interview with The Indian Express, Rao said that the BJP used money power and government machinery to swing the mandate in its favour. He claimed that the BJP was making efforts since last one year to dislodge the Congress-JD(S) government

Rao said that the Congress and JD(S) MLAs were offered huge money and were even blackmailed by the saffron party. He said that the BJP was using central agencies to target opposition leaders, adding that the fall of the government was well engineered.

“The BJP has become a humongous machine, which will use every trick in the book to wean away MLAs. They threaten them, blackmail them, offer them huge sums of money — Rs 30 crore and Rs 50 crore each. They will use ED, IB, everything,” he said.

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The BJP, he said, has become an anti-democratic force. The Congress leader said that everything was done in a systematic way by the BJP and termed it a Rs 1,000 crore operation of the saffron party.

“We have seen governments falling due to internal instability but this is engineered to another level. This was Rs 1,000-crore operation, using special aircraft, five-star hotels. And it has been going on for one year…,” he told the daily.

On rebel MLAs, he said that they were creating problems for the party for long but the party leaders were not talking about it publicly. He pressed for the disqualification of all the rebel MLAs and said that it is an opportunity to clean up the party and vowed to bounce back stronger. He also made it clear that there will be no reconciliation and noted that an opportunity was given to them to return a few days back.

“The leaders who have left were creating problems. Now that they have left, it is a good…opportunity to clean up the party, make it more disciplined, build an organisation,” he said.

On alliance between the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) in the state, he said that the leaders will coordinate in the Assembly. Whether they will fight election together or not, will be decided by the leadership.

The Congress had extended unconditional support to the JD(S) post-elections in May 2018 to keep the BJP out of power after the Legislative Assembly was delivered with a hung verdict. The BJP had won 105 seats in 225-member, eight less than the halfway mark to stake claim to form the government. The coalition had the support of 118 MLAs but it fell short of majority 14 months later.