The Congress on Monday accused the BJP in Parliament for the Karnataka political crisis and said the ruling government was undermining the honour of parliamentary democracy by indulging in 'dal badlu' politics.

The Congress-JDS coalition government is in deep trouble after 13 MLAs of both the parties resigned from the Karnataka Assembly and were flown out to a hotel in Mumbai, allegedly by the BJP.

“Tyaag patra dilane ka silsila hum logon ne toh prarambh nahi kiya. Congress me toh Rahul Gandhi ji ne hi yeh silsila tyaag patra khud dekar prarambh kar diya (we didn’t start this trend of resignations. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi started it himself by resigning),” said defence minister Rajnath Singh on the floor of the House. “He (Rahul) told people to resign himself. You must have seen how senior leaders are resigning one after another. What has the BJP to do with that.”

Rajnath was responding to allegations made by Congress MP Ahdir Chowdhury, who is the Congress' leader of the House.

As the Congress and JDS leaders tried bring the MLAs home in a last-ditch attempt by making their ministers resign, the BJP maintained that it did not know anything about what led to this situation in Karnataka. “Whatever is happening in Karnataka, our party has nothing to do with it. And until today, in our party’s history, no MLA from our party has pressurised or bribed anyone to leave another party,” Singh said. “We... want to maintain the prestige of parliamentary democracy and are committed to it.”

Adhir had earlier spoken in the House about the history of Indian Constitution and how it was constituted by Babasaheb Ambedkar. “A parliamentary democracy” was preferred 'but now that very parliamentary democracy has been the victim of conspiracy and other undermining activities”, Adhir said.

He spoke about Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, where he alleged that the BJP was using horse-trading tactics to break the government. “Yeh dal badlu ko anjaam dene ke liye yeh sarkaar gupt tareeke se saajish rach rahi hai (this government is secretly supporting horse-trading),” he said.

Chowdhury said that as soon as the MLAs left the governor’s office after submitting their resignation, they found that “a car is ready, a plane is ready, a hotel is ready”. He alleged that it proves that there is a predetermined, well calculated design behind it.

“They (the BJP) say they believe in democracy but they are tearing it apart,” Adhir said.