BJP rejects Congress' allegation of orchestrating Karnataka political crisis

BJP General Secretary Muralidhar Rao on Sunday rejected Congress' allegations about saffron party's role behind the prevailing political crisis in Karnataka after the resignation of at least 11 MLAs.

"This is nonsense. It is a baseless allegation. They are not going to gain anything by making allegations against another party which has nothing to do with internal affairs of Congress," Rao told ANI here.

Congress spokesperson Rajdeep Singh Surjewala on Saturday accused the BJP of "denigrating democracy by orchestrating defections" in Karnataka.

Surjewala had also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for promoting defections in his party, hurling a new acronym "MODI - Mischievously Orchestrated Defections in India".

Surjewala said the party deprecates efforts of BJP to "buy over legislators".

The turns of events unfolded as ruling Congress-JD(S) coalition slipped to the brink of collapse following the resignation of at least 11 of their legislators from the membership of the state Assembly.

The strength of the ruling coalition in Karnataka has come down to 105, which is eight short of the half-way mark of 113.

Congress MLAs Anand Singh and Ramesh Jarkiholi resigned from the government earlier this week.