The All-India Congress Committee in-charge for the Union Territory, Sanjay Dutt, on Sunday charged that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) singular agenda was to ensure the downfall of governments, headed by opposition parties, by hook or crook, including misusing central machinery.

Talking to reporters at the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) office in Puducherry, Mr. Dutt said certain facts which had come to light in Karnataka clearly indicated the hands of the BJP in the crisis in the coalition government headed by H.D. Kumaraswamy.

“Using Central government agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate to coerce the legislators to defect only shows their desperation and hunger to usurp power by hook or crook,” he alleged.

‘Double standards’

Mr. Dutt said it was quite amusing that on the one hand the BJP was maintaining the stand in Tamil Nadu that the Speaker was the supreme authority to decide on any issue in the Assembly, but in Karnataka all the statutory provisions had been thrown to the winds.

Referring to the Supreme Court decision on a petition filed by Puducherry Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi, he said that the apex court’s decision not to interfere with the Madras High Court verdict on the powers of an elected government had put the mandate of the people supreme and upheld the constitutional spirit of democracy.

The Lieutenant Governor should either own moral responsibility and resign or else the Centre should intervene and recall her, Mr. Dutt said.