By IANS
New Delhi : The Congress party Monday asked the central government to dissolve the Karnataka assembly and hold fresh elections to prevent “horse trading” and avoid “the huge and irreversible prejudicial impact” of the “unholy” alliance upon the state.
“The Congress calls upon the central government and the governor to dissolve the assembly forthwith and allow the state to proceed to election to prevent imminent horse trading,” the party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said here.
He pointed out that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal-Secular, (JD-S), which have re-united to stake claim to form the government in Karnataka, had been trading charges till last week.
Singhvi said: “The Karnataka soap opera continues unabated. It is a sorry saga of corruption, horse-trading, mismanagement, political opportunism, hypocrisy and unholy alliances which has held the common man of Karnataka hostage to unprincipled and selfish, personalised politics.”
Taking strong exceptions to both the BJP and JD-S’ attempts to form the government, Singhvi alleged that former prime minister Deve Gowda’s JD-S knows “neither the spirit nor the form, nor the spelling of secularism”.
Singhvi said Gowda himself had written to the president and the prime minister about his own apprehensions about possible horse trading in the state a few days ago when the BJP had withdrawn support to the JD-S-led government in the state.
“It is ironical that those who are allowing horse trading to avoid elections are accusing us of horse trading,” he said.
Pointing out that all parties, including the Congress, JD-S and the BJP, have taken a common stand that only an election could lead to a workable government majority, Singhvi said: “The central government is entitled to dissolve the assembly and call for election immediately.”