Bengaluru: On 6 October, 1990, Congress president Rajiv Gandhi cut short his Sadhbavana Yatra and made an unexpected visit to riot-hit Karnataka. The then chief minister Veerendra Patil had suffered a minor stroke and was at ‘Cauvery’—the CM’s official residence.
Patil was even unable to get up and greet Rajiv, according to an India Today report at the time. The next day, Rajiv took an aerial survey of riot-hit Channapatana to take stock of the upheaval that had claimed 88 lives across Karnataka.
Later, Rajiv told reporters at Bengaluru airport that there would be a new government “in four days”, stating that Patil was ill and unable to continue in his position.
“He (Rajiv) goes to the airport and is asked a specific question about Veerendra Patil, and he says he is unwell and that he will be replaced. It was very indiscreet and brash,” independent journalist and author Sugata Srinivasaraju told ThePrint.
The unilateral decision to replace one of Karnataka’s most popular chief ministers and Lingayat leaders was seen as a culmination of a prolonged bitterness towards Patil.
He had sided with former chief minister S. Nijalingappa in the 1969 Congress split, siding with the ‘O’ faction against Indira Gandhi’s ‘I’ bloc. Patil unsuccessfully contested against Indira in the 1978 Chikmagalur parliamentary byelections. He returned to Congress (I) in 1980 when Indira returned to power at the centre.
The CM, meanwhile, expressed unhappiness on the high command’s nominees to his government, delaying the cabinet expansion. Patil remained defiant, publicly stating that he would not quit and in the process, locking horns with the all-powerful Congress high command.
It was reported at the time that Rajiv called for a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting on 10 October, defying the rule that only a CM could convene it. Another version is that he told Patil to hold a CLP where a new CM would be elected.
Either way, Patil refused to convene the CLP. Then Governor Bhanu Pratap Singh said he would not recognise the validity of a CLP without the CM. On 10 October, the day when a new CM was to be elected, the President’s Rule was imposed on Karnataka for a second time between April 1989 and October 1990.
The Veerendra Patil story is one of the many involving chief ministers and their tussle with the party in Karnataka’s political history. The latest tussle between CM Siddaramaiah and his deputy D.K. Shivakumar is playing out a bit differently, though.
For one, then Congress high command is looking helpless. “I have not asked to be CM. It’s a secret deal between five and six of us,” Shivakumar told reporters, lending credence to the talks that after the 2023 Karnataka elections, the high command arrived at an agreement for rotational chief ministership, with Siddaramaiah making way for his deputy after two-and-a-half years in office. That deadline was completed 20 November.
Siddaramaiah isn’t inclined to step down, though. In Patil’s case, then Congress president Rajiv Gandhi had his way, with MLAs standing with the high command. The Congress high command is much weakened today and wary of Siddaramaiah, a popular OBC leader enjoying the support of a large number of MLAs.
With the BJP always ready to fish in the troubled waters, the Congress high command doesn’t want to risk the government’s stability. For now, Siddaramaiah, DK and the high command are all keeping their cards close to their chest.
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Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar & revolving chairs
Congress’s S. Bangarappa had replaced Patil as the CM when the President’s Rule was lifted a week later in October 1990. Two years later, Bangarappa resigned on account of piling corruption allegations, making way for Veerappa Moily who served till December 1994.
The same year, another long-drawn rivalry was revived between Janata Party’s H.D.Deve Gowda and Ramakrishna Hegde. The two stalwarts of Karnataka’s politics had one of the longest running feuds at the time.
But theirs is not the only such animosity that lends to Karnataka’s volatile political climate. One reason is the frequency of fractured mandates that has become the norm in Karnataka, forcing unsustainable alliances.
Of the 23 leaders who became chief ministers, only S. Nijalingappa (1962-68), D. Devaraj Urs (1972-77) and Siddaramaiah (2013-2018) completed a full term in office.
Transition of power has not always been smooth since at least the 1980s whether it was the fight between Indira and Urs, Hegde’s three terms in just five years, defections during S.R. Bommai’s rule, B.S. Yediyurappa’s fight with H.D. Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal (Secular), or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) high command.
Siddaramaiah was the first in over 45 years since Urs to complete a full term in office. Though he completed his first term almost unchallenged, the 77-year-old’s second term has not been as smooth with Shivakumar staking a claim.
A.Narayana, political analyst and faculty at Azim Premji University, said that the ongoing tussle is one the most “dignified” in Karnataka’s otherwise turbulent political history.
“Everytime there was a challenge to the CM’s post, it has been dirty. But this time the two leaders, their families and supporters have maintained a dignity that has not been seen for a long time in Karnataka,” he told ThePrint.
Three-horse race
In mid-1983, there was a heated discussion in the then Janata Party office at Bengaluru’s Race Court on who among Bommai, Bangarappa and Deve Gowda should take over as the next chief minister. The landline rang and the call came from Chandra Shekar, the then party president, who was in Salem, Tamil Nadu, at the time undertaking a ‘padayatra’ (foot march).
Congress state vice-president B.L.Shankar, then a young Janata Party worker, picked up the phone and was instructed to pass on the phone to Deve Gowda.
Chandra Shekhar asked Gowda to suggest Hegde’s name and he complied without protest. Gowda even convened a meeting of Vokkaliga MLAs in Cubbon Park to mobilise consensus.
Shankar recalled that he accompanied Gowda to Hegde’s home and conveyed the news. At first, Hegde was reluctant since he had not even contested the polls, but agreed if everyone was on board. The next day, Gowda approached Bangarappa to convey the decision.
“Bangarappa flatly refused. He said that only Deve Gowda, Bommai or him can be contenders and not an outsider. But as soon as they walked out, Bangarappa’s supporters roughed up Gowda, tearing his clothes,” Shankar said.
Later, Bangarappa broke away from the alliance.
Another such situation arose in 1994, when the Janata Dal won 115 seats out of the 221 it contested in the 1994 assembly elections. But, there was no consensus on the next CM.
Hegde, who was chief minister thrice between January 1983 and August 1998, staked his claim. Having conceded the CM post in 1983, Deve Gowda was in no mood to entertain another challenge, especially from his archrival.
Senior leaders Biju Patnaik and Viren Shah were deployed as observers.
“Hegde wanted to continue as CM. But a big fight broke out. Supporters of Deve Gowda entered the Vidhana Soudha, manhandled Hegde and his supporters,” Shankar told ThePrint.
Gowda won this bout, and Shankar served as the CM’s political secretary between 1995 and 1996.
The two heavyweights fought and made up several times—the highest point was in 1983 when Deve Gowda backed Hegde for the post of CM and the lowest when the latter called the former “unworthy” of becoming the prime minister.
Srinivasaraju, author of ‘Furrows in a Field: The Unexplored Life of H.D. Deve Gowda,’ has dedicated an entire chapter to this legendary rivalry. “Even seventeen years after Hegde’s death (2004), if there is anything that animates Gowda’s conversations, monologues and victimhood, navigates his impulses and judgments and is a touchstone to reckon his life’s good and bad moments, it is the memory of Hegde,” Srinivasraju writes.
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‘Prism of high command’
Last week, Shivakumar backed down—at least temporarily—after he was asked to do so by the party high command. He had spent days in Delhi, trying to get the party brass to keep its promise and make him the CM.
The high command of both political parties, analysts said, must be seen through the prism of the time they led the party.
In 1979, Urs and Indira grew apart with the former drifting away and being part of the new Congress (S) faction. Urs came a distant third in the 1980 Lok Sabha elections and resigned, making way for Gundu Rao, who shared a good rapport with Sanjay Gandhi.
1970s :: Karnataka Chief Minister Devaraj Urs With Indira Gandhi at Dharmasthala pic.twitter.com/9RtTydQlk0
— indianhistorypics (@IndiaHistorypic) April 16, 2023
The argument is that there have been varying results which fluctuated with how powerful the high command is at the time. Though S.M.Krishna (1999-2004) had a relatively smooth term, he went against the advice of MLAs and called for early election in 2004.
The Congress then stitched an alliance with the newly formed JD(S) led by Deve Gowda. Barely two years on, Deve Gowda’s son Kumaraswamy joined hands with the B.S.Yediyurappa-led BJP with an agreement to take turns to be CM. In November 2007, he handed over the CM’s chair to Yediyurappa only to pull out support in just a week.
In 2008, Yediyurappa formed the first ever BJP government in the south, though not with a majority, and with allegations of horse trading. He was forced to resign after rebel minister Gali Janardhana Reddy took away MLAs to a resort. In came D.V.Sadananda Gowda, who was then forced to quit just barely a year into office and replaced by Jagadish Shettar.
This was followed by a relatively undisturbed five years for Siddaramaiah.
The Congress fell short in 2018 and joined hands with the JD(S) to keep the BJP, the single largest party, out of power. Kumaraswamy became the CM. Barely 14 months on, cracks began to appear after the BJP’s landslide victory in 2019 when it won an unprecedented 25 out of the 28 parliamentary seats.
Over the next couple of months, 17 MLAs quit the Congress-JD(S) government, defected to the BJP and helped Yediyurappa form the government. But, this too was short-lived when the Lingayat strongman was replaced by Basavaraj Bommai in 2021.
The ongoing Congress tussle, Srinivasraju said, is dignified only in its packaging.
“It could be the worst. Karnataka’s political culture even when there were claimants and counter-claimants was not as worse as it is today. Today, it is pen drives (read, sleaze videos) and money that settles politics. In the time of Devaraj Urs, Hegde, Deve Gowda or Nijalingappa’s time, that was not the case,” the author said.
Karnataka politicians are among the richest as new money began to flow with Bengaluru’s emerging real estate, replacing ideals with capital, he said. “So, it is not dignified. If at all it is anything, it is mafioso style now where you don’t even know who is hitting whom where. The game has just begun.”
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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