New Delhi, May 17 (IANS): Calling the Karnataka defeat "a big blow" to the Congress, the CPI-M has said that the electoral outcome showed the Congress inability to counter the BJP and RSS "politically, ideologically and organisationally", the CPI-M has said.

"Karnataka was the only state with a Congress government in the south (if union territory Puducherry is discounted)," said an editorial in the CPI-M journal "People's Democracy".

"This election reverse underlines the continuing inability of the Congress to counter the BJP-RSS forces politically, ideologically and organisationally.

"The visits of (Congress President) Rahul Gandhi to temples and mutts have proved to be a flawed and compromising approach to counter the Hindutva forces. Nor was the Congress able to convince people that it had anything better to offer in terms of economic betterment and their livelihood issues, given the fact that the Modi government is aggressively pursuing the very neo-liberal policies which the Congress stands for," the editorial said.

"The only positive outcome of the election is the quick support offered by the Congress to the JD-S to form the government," the Communist Party of India-Marxist said.

The CPI-M said the Left and democratic forces must draw the correct conclusions from this election -- that it is only through relentless struggles against the Modi government's policies that people's unity can be forged against the BJP.

"There has to be an uncompromising struggle against the communal forces and their depredations by drawing in all the secular and democratic forces."

The editorial also criticized the Karnataka Governor's decision to ask Bharatiya Janata Party leader B.S. Yeddyurappa to take oath as Chief Minister when the BJP lacked a majority in the Assembly.

"In this specific instance, when the BJP as the single largest party is unable to get the support of other parties and MLAs, the Governor has to consider the claim of the post-election JD-S-Congress alliance," it said.

"This was what was done by the governors of Goa, Manipur and Meghalaya in the recent period.

"A Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court had also ruled in 2006 in the Rameshwar Prasad case that the Governor can call the leader of a post-poll alliance to form the government if he is convinced that they have the majority of legislators supporting them.

"Any other course of action by the Governor would open the doors for sordid deals and bribery to buy up legislators - something which the BJP excels in."