Congress, JD-S should have allied in Karnataka: Mamata

Kolkata, May 15: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday congratulated “the winning party” in Karnataka and said had the Congress formed an alliance with the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S), the election result would have been “very different”.

“Congratulations to the winners of the Karnataka elections. For those who lost, fight back. If Congress had gone into an alliance with the JD-S, the result would have been different. Very different,” Banerjee tweeted.

According to latest trends, Karnataka delivered a hung assembly with none of the parties able to reach the halfway mark in the 224-member Assembly, where two constituencies didn’t vote on Saturday.

After the initial euphoria in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) camp, Election Commission data showed the BJP could end up with 104 seats while Congress and JD-S would manage 78 and 38 seats respectively.

However, in a dramatic turn of events, the Congress announced its backing to the JD-S to form a government and prevent the BJP from regaining power in its only southern bastion. IANS