Bengaluru: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president B.K. Hariprasad has said that the party will fund any agitation against Prime Minister Narendra Modi that seeks to save and protect the constitution, including the one led by the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP).
Responding to a media person’s question on Union Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) state chief H.D. Kumaraswamy’s claim that the Congress is funding the CJP, Hariprasad said, “It is our right. Every Congressman, whatever the contribution we have to make to CJP or any other agitation against Modi and anyone who wants to protect the constitution and democracy, we will fund them.”
The exchanges in Karnataka come amid the ongoing, and intensifying, political debate as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) questions the CJP’s source of funding in light of the nation-wide protests led by the group against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and alleged irregularities in Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
BJP’s R. Ashoka, the Leader of the Opposition in Karnataka assembly, said that Hariprasad’s remarks did not surprise him—“not even one bit”.
In a post on X, he wrote regarding Hariprasad’s comment that “he is merely dropping the mask”.
“Congress has a long, infamous history of aligning with, nurturing, and bankrolling radical, anti-national elements to destabilise the nation,” he said, adding that the state Congress chief has only confirmed the “unholy nexus”.
“It is now clear that taxpayers’ money in Congress ruled states and Congress funds are actively being siphoned off to finance politically motivated, anti-India disruption,” he further wrote. “And why wouldn’t they? @RahulGandhi has so little faith in himself and his own party cadre and leaders that he now trusts outsiders like Neha Bora and CJP to lead his agenda. When a party’s high command takes orders from fringe activists instead of listening to its own workers, this is the shameful level to which it degrades.”
He also alleged that the D.K. Shivakumar-led Congress government in Karnataka was helping the party use its treasury as an “ATM” to finance CJP and destabilise the nation.
I am not surprised. Not even one bit.
When KPCC President BK Hariprasad openly boasts that Congress will fund CJP and any other fringe agitations against PM Shri @narendramodi ji, he is merely dropping the mask.
Congress has a long, infamous history of aligning with, nurturing,… pic.twitter.com/VddPVBZjsH
— R. Ashoka (@RAshokaBJP) October 17, 2026
Earlier this week, INDIA bloc leaders, led by Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, marched to the Supreme Court to file a petition alleging electoral fraud. Besides key alliance leaders and party workers, Gandhi was accompanied by his sister and MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and All India Students Association (AISA) president Neha Bora. She was also seen atop an open vehicle with Rahul and Priyanka.
Although Congress had initially maintained some distance between itself and the agitation led by CJP, AISA and other prominent civil rights activists, Rahul’s invitation to Abhijit Dipke for tea, along with INDIA bloc allies, has further blurred the lines.
Bora’s remarks from an undated video that went viral on social media that the agitation in Bangladesh “showed us the way” was used by the BJP to claim that the protests were being engineered to destabilise the Modi government.
CJP supporters and others have been actively agitating in Karnataka, one of the few Congress-ruled states in the country.