Bengaluru: Siddaramaiah Saturday took oath as the 34th chief minister of the state. The Congress last week registered a thumping victory in the state, winning 136 of the total 224 seats and is all set to form the government in the southern state. And after a battle of wills with state party chief D.K. Shivakumar for the top post, the former CM emerged victorious.
Siddaramaiah’s political acumen and influence are best described by a 2018 incident. It was the first day of the assembly session and Siddaramaiah and other legislators sat chatting in the Opposition lounge.
The BJP had registered a win in 104 seats that year and emerged as the single largest party, prompting the then Karnataka governor, Vajubhai Vala to invite B.S. Yediyurappa to form the government. However, he was forced to resign after two days as he was unable to prove a majority in the assembly as the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) had formed an alliance to deny the BJP power.
Siddaramaiah was in the Opposition lounge, joking with his fellow legislators, when a timid-looking MLA had approached him. He greeted him warmly and congratulated him for his victory.
“Yenaiyaa, dodd bete hodidiya (figuratively translates to congrats on a big scalp),” Siddaramaiah said, putting his arms around him.
The MLA was B. Satyanarayana of the JD(S), who had defeated a senior Congress leader, T.B. Jayachandra (the law minister at the time), from Sira in Tumakuru.
Siddaramaiah is one of the rare “mass leaders” (the other being Yediyurappa) in Karnataka, who has a knack for forging local alliances and winning over voters.
He commands respect from both his allies and rivals, and his presence is enough to make way for him in the corridors of Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat, while his acknowledgement was a sign of validation for many.
The 76-year-old leader is also known for his wit and humour, which he displays in his interactions with the media, his party workers and even his opponents.
Recalling his interactions with the leader, a Bengaluru-based political analyst told ThePrint, “Siddaramaiah will take as much time as it takes to understand a topic or an issue. But he will only listen to what he wants to hear.”
A master of parliamentary tactics, he can hold his own on the floor of the house.
He is even known to have created rifts between Opposition members, as was seen when two BJP MLAs — M.T.B. Nagaraj and K. Sudhakar — had a Twitter feud over Siddaramaiah’s alleged role in bringing down the H.D. Kumaraswamy-led coalition government in 2019.
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The beginning
Siddaramaiah was born on 12 August, 1948, in Siddaramanahundi in Varuna of Mysuru district. The agriculture-dependent family had a difficult time making ends meet and a young Siddaramaiah was forced to drop out of school and work as a temple dancer and a cattle herder. His two brothers still live a modest life in the village.
Not long after he dropped out, his teachers, who saw his potential, helped him resume his education. He joined the fourth grade directly and went on to complete his graduation in science from Yuvaraja College in Mysuru. He was the first person in his family to get a degree.
Though his father wanted him to become a doctor, Siddaramaiah pursued law at Sarada Vilas College in Mysuru and even served as a guest lecturer at Vidyavardhaka College. But he was not satisfied with his career choice.
Deeply influenced by the writings and life of socialist thinker Ram Manohar Lohia, Siddaramaiah started getting more involved in public work, protests and focusing on social justice.
“I gradually entered public life and started taking the lead to fight social evils. My quest for social justice through reforms made me quit legal practice and jump into politics. I took one step at a time in politics and started gathering momentum,” Siddaramaiah said in a statement released to the media Wednesday.
His political journey
Siddaramaiah started his political career in 1978, when he became a member of the Taluk Development Board. Influenced by professor M.D. Nanjundaswamy, a leader of the farmers’ movement, he asserted himself in politics, spending more time away from his family.
In the run-up to the 2018 elections, his son, Yathindra Siddaramaiah, told this reporter that he saw more of his father after he joined politics.
Siddaramaiah first contested the 1980 Lok Sabha elections from Mysuru district but lost. However, three years later, he won the 1983 assembly elections from Chamundeshwari constituency on a Lok Dal ticket with a scale as the election symbol.
He joined the Ramakrishna Hegde government in 1983, the same year that Yediyurappa also entered the assembly. The BJP was among several others who backed the Hegde government that included Siddaramaiah. He was made the head of the Kannada Kavalu Samiti, a committee for the protection of Kannada language and culture.
Siddaramaiah was re-elected on a Janata Party ticket in the mid-term elections and appointed the minister for animal husbandry and sericulture. He later served as transport minister under S.R. Bommai, the father of the outgoing chief minister, Basavaraj Bommai.
He remained with the Janata Party until it split in 1990 and then joined the Janata Dal faction led by H.D. Deve Gowda. He lost the 1989 assembly elections to Congress under Veerendra Patil. He also lost the 1991 Lok Sabha elections from Koppal.
It was in 1994 that he returned to the assembly for the third time and served as finance minister under H.D. Deve Gowda, who went on to become his mentor and rival in the coming decades.
“What does a shepherd know about finance,” were the murmurs in the government when Siddaramaiah was preparing to present his first budget in 1994.
Since 1994, Siddaramaiah has been the chief minister twice (2013-18 and 2023), deputy chief minister twice (1996-2004 and 2006-2007) and presented the state budget a record 13 times.
He is one of the four chief ministers of Karnataka who have completed a five-year term, along with Devraj Urs, S. Nijalingappa and Ramakrishna Hegde. Devraj Urs and Siddaramaiah are the only two leaders to have completed an uninterrupted five-year term.
He is also one of the six chief ministers who do not belong to either Lingayat or Vokkaliga communities, which are dominant in Karnataka politics.
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From an agnostic to a believer
Siddaramaiah joined the Congress in 2006 after he was expelled from the JD(S) in 2005 by Deve Gowda over an issue over chief ministership. He won the Chamundeshwari bypolls by a margin of just 257 votes in a “prestige battle” between the mentor and the student. There has been no looking back since.
Sonia Gandhi, when inducting Siddaramaiah to the party in Bengaluru, had said that the Congress had gained “the strength of an elephant”.
Since then, Siddaramaiah pipped several other old-time leaders within the Congress to become the Leader of the Opposition, gaining the trust of the Gandhi family and securing his position in the party
Though there were murmurs of him being an “outsider” during his first term as CM, Siddaramaiah had consolidated power and contained any hint of dissent after winning two crucial bypolls in Gundlupet and Nanjangud in 2017.
He is known for his “bhagya” schemes, which provide various welfare benefits to the people, his OBC politics (AHINDA, which stands for minorities, backward classes and Dalits) and his challenge to the dominant caste hegemony, which have all become part of his legacy.
A great admirer of Devaraj Urs, Siddaramaiah has tried to outdo Urs, a former chief minister and a champion of backward classes, in every aspect. He even has a chance to beat Urs as Karnataka’s longest-serving CM, according to those who know him well.
Siddaramaiah began his term in office by declaring that he was an agnostic and had even pushed for an anti-superstition bill in 2017. But over the years, he has started to identify himself as a Hindu going from “agnostic to believer”.
His ambition to become one of Karnataka’s longest-serving CMs stems from the same ability to adapt.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)