BJP wants to capture power at any cost; what happened in Maharashtra shameful for Indian democracy: Congress

The Congress has called out the BJP for destabilizing democratically-elected governments and democratically-installed governments, terming it not only an insult to democracy, but also an insult to the people who voted against the ideology of the BJP.

“Through the naked display of money and muscle power, the BJP has undemocratically and unethically captured yet another state government. Under the Modi-Shah duo, the BJP wants to capture power at any cost, either directly or through remote control. What happened in Maharashtra is shameful for Indian democracy,” Congress MP and AICC General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a statement on Thursday.

“Since 2014, the prime focus of the BJP has been to bring down elected governments in states rather than serve the public. The offices of the Governors and Speakers, and agencies like ED and CBI are openly misused. Buying MLAs has become so commonplace that the Finance Minister blurted out the truth today, when she suggested imposition of GST on horse-trading,” he added.

“BJP can go to any extent to win elections - From misuse of money power to polarization and violence. Despite using all these tactics, if the voters reject them, then they start hatching conspiracies to topple elected governments.

In the year 2016, the BJP brought down the Congress government in Uttarakhand in a similar way. The government elected for 5 years was reduced to a minority in four years by engineering defections. The same year, in Arunachal Pradesh, 43 out of 44 Congress MLAs were made to defect to the BJP-backed Front- People's Party of Arunachal, under the leadership of Chief Minister Pema Khandu,” he said.

“The Congress party was the single largest party by winning 28 out of 60 seats in the 2017 assembly elections in Manipur. The BJP had only 21 seats but the Congress was not given a chance by the Governor to prove its majority. A similar modus operandi was carried out in Bihar in the year 2017. The BJP unethically toppled the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ government that lasted 20 months. In the year 2019, the Congress-JDS coalition government was toppled in Karnataka. In the month of March 2020, as the Covid-19 virus had entered the country after wreaking havoc elsewhere, a political conspiracy was being hatched in Madhya Pradesh. The world was preparing to deal with the challenge of Coronavirus but the BJP government was busy capturing elected governments,” Ramesh added.

“In June 2020, 8 MLAs of Gujarat Congress were made to join BJP, only for the purpose of winning Rajya Sabha elections. In 2021, a similar story repeated in Puducherry. Even before the assembly elections, the BJP toppled the Congress government in the state,” he said.

“There are two other such incidents where BJP tried to form a government in an unethical manner through money power. First, in November 2019 in Maharashtra, where Devendra Fadnavis took oath along with 10 defected NCP MLAs at midnight, but then had to step down unceremoniously. Second, in Rajasthan, BJP tried to mislead 19 Congress MLAs, but their machinations failed and the Congress government continues to serve the people of Rajasthan,” he added.

“We strongly condemn the way BJP is destabilizing both democratically-elected governments and democratically-installed governments. This is not only an insult to democracy, but also an insult to the people, who voted against the ideology of BJP,” Jairam Ramesh said.