Why Karnataka Congress has appointed over 140 new office-bearers

As the state heads into assembly polls, the Congress party makes changes to the KPCC. Insiders say it’s to keep varied interests pleased, avert defections, and reward workers.

File photo of Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar and Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah during a protest against inflation, in Bengaluru | ANI

Bengaluru: Assembly elections in Karnataka are just a year away, and the Congress party appears to have found a new way to keep its flock together — accommodating as many people as possible among its state office-bearers.

Congress president Sonia approved a list of 40 party vice-presidents and 109 general secretaries Saturday evening — a development that comes almost three years after the party dissolved its Karnataka unit committees and its member committees in the aftermath of the party’s performance in the general elections.

The Congress and its then alliance partner, the Janata Dal (Secular) won just two — one seat each — of Karnataka’s 28 Lok Sabha seats in 2019.

The Congress party’s decision to keep its rank and file happy comes in the wake of several desertions — the party has lost a host of leaders at the national level, including Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jitin Prasada, RPN Singh, Sushmita Dev, and Captain Amarinder Singh to other parties just in the last two years. In Karnataka alone, more than a dozen Congress legislators jumped ships to the BJP in 2019 bringing the JDS-Congress coalition down and paving the way for the saffron party to form the government.

The list also comes less than a week after senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who visited Karnataka, spoke about loyalty and merit being rewarded in the party.

The All India Congress Committee had been deliberating over various lists sent to them by Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee chief DK Shivakumar and Leader of Legislature party Siddaramaiah, sources in the party said.

Legislators kept out

The choice to keep incumbent legislators out of the list was significant as well.

“Legislators have been kept out of the list to accommodate party workers who have been relentlessly working on the jobs given to them,” an incumbent office-bearer told ThePrint. “Moreover, MLAs will have to concentrate on their constituencies.”

Another list of secretaries is also likely to be released soon,  the office-bearer said.

What’s also significant about the list is that it seems to be giving almost equal representation to leaders from various groups within the party, a leader from the party told ThePrint.

“Of the new office bearers, 53 are from backward classes, 25 from Scheduled Castes, and 4 from scheduled tribes,” said a statement from the KPCC on Saturday night.

The list, a copy of which is with ThePrint— which also includes 22 minorities — has a total of 23 women and one transgender person.

“This way nobody gets left out. Our workers from all communities, castes, and regions have been accommodated,” a former minister and senior leader of the Congress told ThePrint. The leader added that this would also leave little space for dissent in the runup to the election. “What is the party going to lose? If a larger group of office bearers can help keep the party united in an election year then what is the harm seems to be the thinking,” the leader said.

Transgender activist on the list

Among those on the office-bearer’s list is a transwoman and gender rights activist. This is the first time that a gender minority has been appointed as an office-bearer in KPCC.

“This is a huge opportunity that Congress has entrusted me with,” Akkai Padmasali, a well-known transgender rights activist who’s the newly appointed General Secretary of KPCC, told The Print. “I will not be speaking just about transgender rights but against all forms of oppression and division. The Congress party, by appointing me a General Secretary, has upheld its inclusive ideology.”

Party insiders acknowledge that the number of vice-presidents is unusually high this year — the first time the party has appointed so many —  they claim it is not the first time the party had such a large number of office-bearers. The Congress had over 300 office-bearers before the last assembly elections in 2018 when Congress leader G Parmeshwar was the state unit president.

“But those appointments had been made in a staggered manner over months. The new list of office bearers too should have come in a staggered manner but since that did not happen, the list seems longer,” a senior Congress legislator said.

Contentious inclusion

A significant inclusion among the party’s new vice-presidents is VS Ugrappa — a former Lok Sabha Member of Parliament who was part of the now-infamous hotmic scandal.

The scandal involved Ugrappa discussing DK Shivakaumar’s involvement in an alleged corruption row with now-expelled Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee media coordinator MA Saleem just before a press conference. The conversation was picked up by microphones of TV channels and resulted in Saleem’s expulsion from the party’s primary membership for six years. Ugrappa was issued a show-cause notice to explain his behaviour.

The latest list shows that the party did not want to alienate anyone just before elections, a noted former minister said.

“The party clearly doesn’t want to give anyone an opportunity to wash their dirty linen in public,” the leader said. “The attempt seems to be to see if things move along more smoothly if everyone’s candidate is accommodated.”

(Edited By Uttara Ramaswamy)