On 13 May, DK Shivakumar was in tears. Emotions got the better of the Congress ‘strongman’. The Congress party had registered wins on 135 seats out of the 224 assembly seats it contested in Karnataka — one of the biggest margins for the party in nearly three decades.
“I have said in the beginning, joining here is the beginning, the day I took oath (as state Congress president) thinking together is progress, working together is success,” said an overwhelmed Shivakumar.
The Congress party had summoned all its legislators to be at Shangri-la hotel in Bengaluru on 14 May as the national observers wanted to gather the opinion of newly elected MLAs in deciding the next CM of Karnataka.
Outside Shangri-la hotel in Bengaluru, Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah’s supporters faced off, trying to outshout each other in the hope that their enthusiasm is noticed by the Delhi leadership.
The same day, surrounded by his party leadership, Shivakumar cut two cakes to ring in his 61st birthday. But in less than 24 hours, he looked defeated.
The dream of becoming CM was within grasp but fate had other plans. A ‘secret ballot’ of newly elected MLAs did not go his way even though Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah’s supporters claimed to have the backing of ‘majority of the legislators’.
But that would not draw curtains on the endless drama in Karnataka.
It would take four more days and the political drama would play out in the national capital as the two leaders refused to blink, both wanting to become CM. As for Congress the good thing is that, unlike in Rajasthan or Punjab, all action remained behind the doors.
Karnataka has come as a shot in the arm for a dwindling Congress before 2024. But party politics takes away the shine off of a clear and strong mandate and weakens the image of the victors, often a key factor in national politics. With Congress, it has happened in Karnataka. And that is why it is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of The Week.
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A tale of two leaders
Other than the party platform and urge to sit on the CM’s chair, there is little that’s common between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar who come from very different economic and social backgrounds. The biggest differentiator being their politics. Siddaramaiah has carved a niche for himself with the AHINDA (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits) brand of politics while Shivakumar is an organisational man. The latter is also emerging as a recognisable leader of the Vokkaliga community, an influential caste group whose dominance over state politics (along with Lingayats) has long been challenged by Siddaramaiah in his four-decade old career.
The two have one more thing in common: politics that led to the collapse of the HD Kumaraswamy-led coalition government.
After the assembly elections in May 2018, it was Shivakumar’s tact that kept several legislators out of the grasp of BJP, which had emerged as the single-largest party with 104 seats but could not form the government.
However, his ‘interference’ in Belagavi’s affairs in late 2018 is what triggered the first round of rebellion within the Congress-JDS coalition as the Jarkiholi brothers, who consider the border district as their political turf, vehemently opposed it. Ramesh Jarkiholi, already upset over Shivakumar promoting his arch rival Lakshmi Hebbalkar in Belagavi Rural, became the catalyst in the defection drama.
However, Siddaramaiah too had a role to play in the 2019 crisis that led to the Congress losing power in the state, people aware of the developments say, as almost all 17 turncoats were considered close to the then Chairman of the coordination committee. Nearly 14 months after the Congress and JD(S) stitched an alliance to keep the BJP out of power, internal dissent started to emerge within the coalition partners. Soon after the Congress and JD(S) were reduced to just one seat each in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, several legislators from the alliance government started resigning in droves and led to the collapse of the coalition government. These arguments, his close aides say, were presented by Shivakumar’s side while negotiating for the CM’s chair in Delhi.
Shivakumar was then seen as the man trying to bring back the turncoats by standing outside a luxury hotel in Mumbai where Ramesh Jarkiholi and at least 10 others were holed up for days.
Soon after the fall of the Congress-JDS government in 2019 came the arrest of Shivakumar in a disproportionate assets case in which he had to spend 50 days in Tihar Jail. It was his phoenix moment and the Congress leader did not buckle under pressure. The challenges ahead are likely to push him further to his limits.
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‘Not set in stone’
Siddaramaiah is a man who wants to leave behind a legacy, people who have known the leader say, and his ‘Bhagya’ brand of welfare schemes will get a shot in the arm with the implementation of the guarantees promised by the Congress.
When the Congress fulfils its pre-election five guarantees, it will be Siddaramaiah’s face that will find visibility and his politics the currency among the electorate. This leaves little for Shivakumar to do if he does get a crack at the top chair in due course of time.
Siddaramaiah will also lead the party into the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which was considered one of the reasons why Shivakumar wanted to be CM first.
Though senior leaders of the party have confirmed to ThePrint on the rotational CM arrangement, the national leadership has made no official statement or commented on this.
“It’s all fine print and nothing is set in stone,” said one Congress legislator, requesting anonymity.
Siddaramaiah’s strong grip over a large number of legislators means anyone seen as challenging his authority is likely to invite trouble for themselves. Shivakumar on the other hand is trying to assert himself as the (eventual) ‘successor’. The Congress party in Karnataka has several factions led by other leaders such as Mallikarjun Kharge, G Parameshwara, KH Muniyappa among others. The party high command’s decision to consider Siddaramaiah as the CM for a second term has not gone down well with the likes of Parameshwara. Nor has the decision to appoint only one Deputy CM on the insistence of Shivakumar, denying members of other prominent communities a chance.
The Congress high command had offered the role of Deputy CM to Shivakumar, along with some key portfolios and asked him to continue as president of the state unit. This has angered several other senior leaders, effects of which are likely to be felt in the government. The fight for cabinet berths and key portfolios is already on.
Siddaramaiah’s proposed legislation such as the anti-superstition law, regulating cost of private medical care among others have been opposed internally in the past.
If sources are to be believed, Shivakumar was among those who opposed the release of the 2015 caste census, which Siddaramaiah had designed to challenge the dominant caste theory in Karnataka.
Even though Shivakumar will have several departments under his control, the CM-led State High Level Clearance Committee (SHLCC) is the sole authority to approve big-ticket projects in the state. As CM, Siddaramaiah is expected to retain the finance department, which drafts the budget and intelligence from the home department.
If the fight to the CM chair is any indication, the Congress-led government is likely to head into more turbulence in the coming days—something it can’t afford less than 11 months before the Lok Sabha elections.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)