For Congress, the Karnataka election results are just as enticing as food is to a man starving for long.

Having been on a sticky wicket over the past few wickets — first on the debate over the joint parliamentary committee probing the 2G spectrum allocation and its ready clean chit to PM Manmohan Singh and FM Chidambaram, then over law minister Ashwani Kumar and sundry officers’ vetting of the CBI’s coal block allocation scam draft report, and finally railway minister Pawan Bansal’s alleged proximity to his nephew, more specifically the latter’s deal to ‘fix’ a railway board slot — it sure was a breather for the party as updates from Karnataka started pouring in from Wednesday morning.

Little wonder, then, even the PM, who normally goes about his business with the mute button perpetually pressed on, was exultant. Indicating that the result was not just a victory for the Congress, Manmohan Singh said: “The Karnataka election results are a defeat of an ideology.”

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Here we cull out some of the interesting reactions from the political class and more:

“BJP has suffered an innings defeat,” declared urban development minister and senior Congress leader Kamal Nath soon after victory looked set.

“I am very happy with the victory in Karnataka; it was a joint effort,” Congress president Sonia Gandhi told NDTV.

Taking the fight to the party’s bête noire number one, Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, external affairs minister Salman Khurshid said, “Karnataka’s message for Narendra Modi is that there is no Narendra Modi.”

Fellow Congress leader Digvijay Singh also took on the Modi bait, saying, “No one knows Narendra Modi outside Gujarat. It has been proved again by Karnataka.”

A tweet from the prime minister’s office (PMO) handle: “He (Rahul Gandhi) took a leading role in the campaigning and worked hard. I congratulate the Congress workers of Karnataka.”

Finance minister P Chidambaram’s assurance to the average voter: “Congress will give stable, progressive and hard-working government in Karnataka.”

Congress veteran and communication and information technology minister Kapil Sibal was meanwhile sanguine that the fate of the Karnataka elections would reflect the general elections, scheduled next year: “BJP will meet the same fate in the general elections.”

Kiran Bedi, known for her strong views on all things contesting and contestable, tweeted, “'We d People' in Karnataka punishing Party which was in power in d State and took People for granted. Ominous.”

The saffron corner, meanwhile, sounded a touch defensive and a lot pensive. Former RSS ideologue MG Vaidya said, “Though BJP was set to fare poorly, such a disgusting performance… no one thought of.”

Chief minister Jagadish Shettar, on the other hand, looked at the speck of good amid heaps of bad: “There are ups and downs in politics, we will definitely recover.”

Senior BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy also struck the introspection note, though delivered it with a bit of bluster, as you would expect of political leaders on national television: “Karnataka is a local issue, but it does not take us off track. What happened in Karnataka was bad politics by the party but we will be back.”