Guwahati:  Following BJP’s route in Karnataka polls, Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) said it is a “moral defeat” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah who led the saffron party’s election campaign in the southern state.

AJP president Lurinjyoti Gogoi congratulated the Congress for its performance in Karnataka and said “people of the southern state voted against spiralling inflation and unemployment”.

“Prime Minister Modi and home minister Shah had personally steered the BJP’s campaign there but the election results indicate that it is a moral defeat for them,” Gogoi said.

AJP general secretary Jagadish Bhuyan said people have given a “befitting reply to the BJP’s politics of polarisation”.

The “failure” of the BJP government in the state and the “alleged corruption charges” against Karnakata Chief Minister Basavaraj S Bommai led to “disillusionment among the electorates and they voted against the saffron party”, said the AJP.

The Congress won 136 of the 224 assembly seats in Karnataka while the BJP managed to secure 64 seats in the state. The JD-S, which was hoping to be kingmaker, won 18 constituencies and was leading in two.