'Congress has no role to play in Karnataka'

The Indian National Congress has no role to play in the present situation in Karnataka, said Jayanthi Natrajan, spokesperson of the Congress party on Wednesday. She was commenting on the ongoing crisis in the state.

Bharatiya Janata Party insists that Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy must honour his commitment of the power-sharing arrangement for 20 months last year and let party nominee B S Yediyruppa take over as the next chief minister of the state.

"At the moment we are watching the developments, but have no role to play," Natrajan told newspersons.

"Party general secretary Hari Prasad would be able to tell you better as he is incharge of Karnataka," she said.

When a newsperson from the electronic media asked her whether the party will honour the statement of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh three months ago that Congress would have no truck with the Janata Dal-Secular, she said that three months was too long a period.

"It is for Congress president Sonia Gandhi and other senior leaders to decide," she said when asked specifically what the party would do in case JD-S approached and offered to support the Congress-led government.

In the meanwhile, BJP has called an emergency meeting of the parliamentary party on Thursday where Yashwant Sinha would explain in detail the manner in which the negotiations were conducted with the JD-S leadership.

Deve Gowda, former prime minister and president of JD-S, is expected to visit Delhi on October 5 to meet BJP president Rajnath Singh to sort out the power-sharing issue.

However, sources within the BJP indicated that they have already given up and Karnataka would be heading for President's rule.