Congress MLA Roshan Baig hopes Opposition learns lessons from debacle

Congress's miffed lawmaker Roshan Baig on Friday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his resounding victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and hoped that the Opposition parties learn lessons from their debacles.

"Hearty congratulations to PM @narendramodi for getting such a massive mandate. The people have spoken, I hope PM Modi works towards bringing inclusive growth to the country. I hope all the opposition parties learn from this loss and introspect without making excuses," Baig wrote on his Twitter handle.

Baig, who is apparently at loggerheads with the Congress party after not getting a ticket to contest the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls, came into limelight after he levelled a series of strong allegations against the party leadership. He called Congress general secretary KC Venugopal a "buffoon", the party's state unit president Dinesh Gundu Rao "a flop show" and blamed Congress Legislature Party Leader (CLP) Siddaramaiah for the "collapse" of the Congress-JD(U) alliance in the state.

For his anti-party attitude, the Congress served him a showcause notice seeking an explanation from him within a week, to which the Congress MLA responded by saying he will not even bother reading the notice as it has "clearly been sent on the orders of the same people whose incompetencies were highlighted" by him.

Speaking to ANI on May 21, Baig had reiterated that he is upset with the fact that no seats were given to Christians and only one seat was given to Muslims in Karnataka.

"No seats were given to Christians and only one seat was given to Muslims in Karnataka, they were ignored. I'm upset with this, we have been used," he had said.

When he was asked whether Congress should have given more thought before assigning minister portfolios in Karnataka, Baig said, "Portfolios were sold. How can I blame Kumaraswamy for it? He wasn't allowed to function. From day one Siddaramaiah said he is going to be the chief minister. You have gone to their doorstep to form the government."

Responding to this, Congress leaders Gundu Rao and Rizwan Arshad had slammed Baig and later even called him an "opportunist" and asked him to resign from the party.

"He is an opportunist. If he has guts let him resign and contest from the BJP. If Congress is such a bad party which gave him power for the last 10 years and made him MLA for the last four terms let him resign and contest from BJP. Let's see what happens in Shivajinagara," Rizwan Arshad had said.

In Karnataka, BJP has won 25 seats while 1 seat each was bagged by Congress, JD(S) and an independent candidate.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP had won 17 seats in the state while Congress and JD(S) were restricted to nine and 2 seats respectively.