BJP govt's fall in K'taka invites sharp reactions from Mamata, Tejashwi

The collapse of the three-day-old BJP government in Karnataka, without facing a floor test in the Assembly today, drew sharp reactions from prominent opposition leaders, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the RJD's Tejashwi Yadav, who dubbed it as a victory of democracy and truth.

As the news of Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa's resignation without facing the floor test in Karnataka poured in, Banerjee, who is the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief, said it was a "victory of the regional front" and of democracy.

She also greeted JD(S) leaders H D Deve Gowda and H D Kumaraswamy as well as the Congress party.

"Democracy wins. Congratulations Karnataka. Congratulations DeveGowda Ji, Kumaraswamy Ji, Congress and others. Victory of the 'regional' front (sic)," she tweeted.

Banerjee, who had earlier mooted the idea of a federal front of regional parties, has been in touch with prominent opposition leaders after the Karnataka Assembly poll results threw up a fractured verdict.

She had spoken to former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, his son H D Kumaraswamy, who is the Congress-JD(S) nominee for the chief minister's post, and her Andhra Pradesh counterpart, N Chandrababu Naidu, among others.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav also took to Twitter soon after Yeddyurappa announced his decision to resign as the Karnataka chief minister.

"Truth can never be defeated! Truth will always defeat a lie or liar! #KarnatakaFloorTest," the younger son of party chief Lalu Prasad wrote on the microblogging website.

Tejashwi had led a delegation of RJD, Congress, CPI-ML and HAM leaders to Bihar Governor Satya Pal Malik yesterday to stake claim to form government in the state on the lines of Karnataka, where the single-largest party, the BJP, was invited to form the government, even though it fell short of a majority.

The RJD is the single-largest party in the 243-member Bihar Assembly with 80 MLAs. It is in an alliance with the Congress in Bihar after the disintegration of the Grand Alliance ministry, headed by Nitish Kumar, in July last year.

After Kumar's JD(U) quit the Grand Alliance and joined hands with the BJP to form government in Bihar, the RJD became the main opposition party in the state.

The BJP government's fall in Karnataka also triggered reactions from Congress leaders in the north-eastern states of Manipur and Meghalaya, where the party had emerged as the single largest one after the Assembly polls, but was not given a chance to form the government.