CHENNAI: The overwhelming triumph of the Congress party in the Karnataka Assembly elections triggered celebrations by party workers all over the State and Chief Minister M K Stalin said that ‘the landmass of Dravidian family stands clear of BJP,’ giving a clarion call, ‘Now let us all work together to win 2024 to restore democracy and constitutional values in India.’
Soon after the news of the victory broke, Stalin called up party president Mallikarjuna Kharge, national leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and Karnataka leaders Siddaramaiah and PCC president D K Shivakumar over phone and conveyed his greetings and congratulations to them.
Even as the results started pouring in pointing to an imminent victory of the Congress, the celebrations started with functionaries and State leaders distributing sweets at Sathyamurthy Bhavan, the State headquarters.
Stalin, in a tweet, said, ‘The unjustifiable disqualification of brother Rahul Gandhi as MP, misusing premier investigative agencies against political opponents, imposing Hindi, rampant corruption have all echoed in the minds of Karnataka people while voting and they have upheld the Kannadiga Pride by teaching a befitting lesson to BJP's vindictive politics.’
State Minister for Sports Development and Youth Welfare, Udhayanidhi Stalin, in a tweet, said that the fight against fascism had begun from the South and it was the BJP’s tyranny, communalism and corruption that led to its defeat, which would be a forerunner to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, too.
Leaders of other parties in the DMK-Congress alliance in the State, too, said that the victory in Karnataka was a forerunner to removal of the BJP from the Union Government. MDMK general secretary Vaiko said it was a triumph for people’s power.
In a statement, he recalled the BJP indulging in horse trading to pull down the earlier government formed by the Congress in alliance with the Janata Dal after the 2018 Assembly elections by taking help from the Governor.
The State was converted into a Hindutva laboratory with RSS-Hindutva inciting violence against minorities and robbing Muslims of their cultural rights, he said and expressed the hope that results of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls would be on the same lines.
President of the Manithaneya Makkal Katchi H M Jawahariullah said that rampant corruption and the incitement of anti-Muslim sentiments worked against the BJP. He pointed out that the BJP government had taken away the 4 per cent reservation for backward class Muslims and thanked the people of the State for electing the Congress in.
Social media users in the State pointed to the BJP losing in most of the constituencies that were taken care of by the State BJP President K Annaamalai, who was assigned as the deputy coordinator for the elections. In fact the elections had evoked more interest in the State in view of Annamalai's deputation for election work since the beginning.
