Elections in Karnataka may still be two years away, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemed to have renewed his Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) mission to topple the state’s ruling Congress on Sunday (May 10) when he tore into the Grand-Old Party at an event in Bengaluru.
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Repeating the saffron party’s strong take on the Congress ending its alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) to back the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) of actor-politician Vijay in Tamil Nadu, Modi slammed the country’s principal opposition party as “backstabber” and “parasitic”.
‘Congress govt before 2014 survived because of DMK’
The PM, who congratulated Vijay after he took oath as the chief minister of the southern state the same day after cobbling up the majority with the help of the Congress and some other parties and assured the Centre’s cooperation with Chennai to improve the lives of the state’s people, said, “Just look at the situation in Tamil Nadu right now. For 25-30 years, the Congress shared a close relationship with the DMK. Time and again, the alliance with the DMK pulled the Congress out of crises.”
“Indeed, the government it (Congress) led for 10 years before 2014 survived largely because of the DMK. Yet, the very DMK that consistently worked for the betterment of the Congress was betrayed the moment the political winds shifted,” Modi added.
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He accused the GOP of harbouring “lust for power” and said it stabbed the DMK in the back “at the very first opportunity”. According to Modi, the Congress now needs another party to piggyback and remain politically relevant. He also called it a “parasitic party” which doesn’t think twice to ditch its own ally.
Congress came to TVK’s rescue to get majority
The Congress, which contested the April 23 elections in Tamil Nadu as part of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance and won five seats, extended support for Vijay after the TVK ended up as the single-largest party but fell short of the majority figure of 118. Later, Left parties such as the CPI and CPI(M), the VCK and the IUML also decided to back Vijay to take the ruling coalition’s number of MLAs to 120, two more than the required figure.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also attended the swearing-in ceremony of Vijay held at Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai, which was attended by several thousand people.
Modi’s criticism of the Congress as a “backstabber” is not the first time that such a term has been used against the party. Sources in the DMK, led by former chief minister MK Stalin, had also used it after the Congress threw support behind the TVK.
Earlier in the week, a DMK resolution said in the presence of Stalin, “The Congress has done to us in Tamil Nadu what the BJP does in many states.”
“The Congress has committed a great betrayal by stabbing our party leader in the back, not even coming in person to thank him for the victory. But he (Stalin) showed tolerance and acted with generosity and responsibility,” it read.
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The DMK allotted the Congress 28 seats to contest the 2026 elections, three more than what they got in 2021.
BJP also attacked Congress, said INDIA bloc in trouble
The BJP has been attacking the Congress over the developments in Tamil Nadu over the past week. The move has reportedly annoyed the party’s other national allies, such as the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.
BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said the developments reflect a growing “distrust” among the allies of the Opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) towards the Congress. Poonawalla also said that the bloc was falling apart like a pack of cards and lacked any common ideology or vision.
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