Either BJP will take over power in Karnataka or there will be mid-term polls: Muralidhar Rao

Hyderabad, May 29: The H D Kumaraswamy-led coalition government in Karnataka will not be able to complete its full term and either the BJP will have to take over the mantle or there will be a mid-term election in the state, BJP general secretary Muralidhar Rao said.

Addressing the Telangana BJP State Executive meeting here, Rao alleged that Congress president Rahul Gandhi had "miserably failed" in leading his party in Karnataka.

"There are only two alternatives, either the BJP has to take the responsibility or there will be mid-term election in Karnataka. There is no other way. It is people's mandate," he said.

"This (Karnataka) government cannot run like this. Because history says that any party with just 37 seats or 20 seats or 25 seats cannot run the government in democracy," he claimed.

JD(S) leader Kumaraswamy, whose party secured only 37 seats in the recently concluded Karnataka assembly election, took over as Chief Minister of the state last week with the support of 78-member Congress team.

According to Rao, who is in-charge of Karnataka's party affairs, the people of the state voted against the Congress and that it entered into an "unholy tie-up" with the JD(S).

"People wanted Congress-mukt Karnataka (Congress-free Karnataka). The way Ravana kidnapped Sita (in the Hindu epic Ramayana), Rahul Gandhi and Congress hijacked democracy in Karnataka," he said.

"This will have an impact on political landscape of the country," he further said.

Taking a dig at Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, he said Naidu's campaign against BJP fell flat as Telugu-speaking people in the neighbouring state voted in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The senior BJP leader said the 'NaMo' App through which Modi held video interactions with party cadre during Karnataka elections, would be implemented all over the country during Lok Sabha polls.

Telangana BJP president K Laxman said the party would soon chalk out a road map to reach out to the masses ahead of the 2019 general election.

He said the party would undertake various programmes to highlight the "failures and corruption" of the TRS government in Telangana.

The Kumaraswamy government had on May 25 won a vote of confidence without a contest, with the BJP MLAs walking out of the Karnataka assembly before the floor test, in an unexciting end to the high-voltage political drama after the polls yielded a hung House.