BJP abusing state machinery to destabilise govt: Congress

Mumbai: The Congress has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of misusing the police and the state machinery to destabilise the democratically elected Karnataka government.

If BJP leaders can enter the hotel where dissident Karnataka MLAs have been put up freely, why were Congress leaders stopped, they asked.

Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan said the goings-on in the southern state were detrimental to democracy.

He further accused Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis of encouraging efforts to destabilise the 13-month-old Congress-JD(S) government.

The rebel MLAs of the ruling combine have been held captive in Mumbai on the police’s watch, he alleged.

“The BJP earlier made a mockery of democracy in Goa and Manipur,” the former chief minister alleged. “Most of the rebels are Congress legislators, but party leaders are not being allowed to meet them. This is suppression,” he said.

“The BJP is strangulating democracy. The way D.K. Shivakumar was taken away while talking to reporters was condemnable,” Mr Chavan tweeted.

He also condemned the police action against Maharashtra Congress leaders Milind Deora and Naseem Khan.

Mr Deora said there was no provocation from Congress leaders. “We want these MLAs to go back to Karnataka,” he said.

Later in the evening, a delegation of senior MRCC leaders met the commissioner of police, Sanjay Barve, and registered their protest against the “unlawful detention of Congress leaders.”