New Delhi, May 11 (IANS) Stunned by the Uttarakhand developments where the Congress returned to power, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday sought to put up a brave front and claimed that the Congress's jubilation in the hill state will be "short lived".
"Yeh dikahane ka bahumat hai (This majority is just for show)," BJP leader Shrikant Sharma told IANS outside parliament.
"It will be a short-term glory. They have already lost the confidence of the people of Uttarakhand. Congress's majority in the state assembly was a result of purchase and sale of elected members as was clearly demonstrated by the sting operations," Sharma said.
He asserted that in contrast to the claims of the Congress party, the crisis in the Harish Rawat government in March was due to "internal problems in their party".
"We had nothing to do with it. If the state's chief minister (Rawat) had respect for parliamentary democracy, he would have tendered his resignation on March 18 itself when the budget could not be passed," Sharma said.
Joining issue with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for his comments on the turn of events in Uttarakhand,
Sharma said: "A party that scored a century by abusing and misusing Article 356 should not lecture the country
about democracy."
He said, "The celebrations and fire crackers in Uttarakhand will be short-lived because these are artificial. The celebrations are only efforts to conceal the fact that liquor mafia and sand mafia were involved in saving the Harish Rawat government".