BENGALURU: A day after attending the swearing-in ceremony of chief minister Siddaramaiah, his deputy DK Shivakumar and eight other Congress ministers, former Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, praised the people of Karnataka for “showing the way to fight power and agencies through votes in a democracy”. She was referring to the recent assembly elections where Congress trounced BJP.
She thanked the people of the state and “opposition parties who believe in the Constitution, democratic and secular values and the idea of India”.
Asked what the victory meant to a united opposition, Mufti told TOI on Sunday “that it is a ray of hope for the idea of India to survive”. She recalled her stay inKarnataka in the 90s for about a year and said the people of Karnataka “are nice, peace-loving and secular”.
“However, in the past five years, there has been a lot of hatred and communal and divisive politics which has caused wounds in the secular fabric of the state,” she said while hoping that the new Congress government would heal these wounds.
She accused BJP of disempowering majority governments in past and hoped that the results from Karnataka’s assembly elections would serve as a wake-up call for all. “I hope they smell and taste the coffee,” she said.
She said Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra laid a foundation for change and that “he has understood the country better”. “Congress, which played the biggest role in the Independence of the country, also has the biggest role in keeping alive the idea and spirit of India,” she said.
As for Karnataka, she anticipated “good governance, minus the 40% commission. ”
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