Dinesh Gundu Rao, the Karnataka Congress chief, was once an engineer looking to go abroad before his father’s death brought him to public life.
Bengaluru: For a member of a political family, Dinesh Gundu Rao’s entry into active public life was accidental.
The man who is the Karnataka Congress president was an engineer aspiring for a job abroad when, in 1993, his father, former Karnataka chief minister R. Gundu Rao, passed away.
Chosen to take over his father’s political mantle, Dinesh Rao has forged a political career that has seen him head various Congress district units and serve as the state’s minister of food, civil supplies and consumer affairs before his current assignment.
One of the least controversial Congressmen in Karnataka politics, Rao is known for his organisational skills and has a reputation of being extremely amicable and soft-spoken. He is also among those credited for holding the shaky Congress-JD(S) alliance together.
The accidental politician
Having made his political debut in 1993, Gundu Rao has never lost an election — he is a five-time MLA from the Gandhinagar constituency in Bengaluru. His supporters believe that he is well on his way to becoming the chief minister of the state, just like his father.
“Dinesh was very young when his father passed away. He had two other brothers, but he was chosen to take over his father’s political legacy. That’s how he got into politics,” says his wife Tabassum.
Tabassum feels that she has a seen a sea change in him after he took over as the working president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee.
“From being an introvert and soft-spoken, he has become more aggressive and opinionated,” she says. “But I also think he is happier in his present role as KPCC president than when he was a minister.”
Rizwan Arshad, the Congress youth president, says what works in Rao’s favour is that he ensures he shares credit for what the party does right.
“One big quality I have seen about him is that he does not throw his personality around. Although he contributes majorly in many missions in the party, he does not hijack the situation and try to take credit for it,” Rizwan says. “That is what makes him so different from others. His game plan is that he will work and makes others work too. He is very result–oriented.”
Dinesh Rao’s elevation from the position of a working president to the president was a calculated move by the Congress high command. His proximity to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and former chief minister Siddaramaiah helped him gain the position, along with his organisational skills.
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The strategist
The JDS-Congress alliance in Karnataka is a shaky one and Dinesh Rao has been commended for being able to maintain the delicate balance.
“We recently saw both Siddaramaiah and Deve Gowda address the media together after 12 years. Dinesh Gundu Rao was responsible in bringing them together,” says R. Satish, a youth worker from the Gandhinagar constituency. “He has emerged as one of the smart strategists of the party today.”
The Congress chief’s next task is the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and Dinesh Rao believes that the party is in the right shape for it.
“Many thought this coalition government will not last and would put the Congress back. But we won the Vijayanagara and Jayanagara assembly bypolls after the assembly elections,” Dinesh Rao told ThePrint.
“We even won in Gulbarga, something the Congress has never managed. This shows how battle ready we are.”
With a deep understanding of the caste combinations and vote shares in different regions, Dinesh Rao also has a reputation of being able to identify a winner and strategising accordingly.
One such example is the recent Shivamogga Lok Sabha bypoll where the Congress fielded a JD(S) candidate, despite being stronger in the constituency.
“We analysed as to who is in the best position to win in the constituency. In Shivamogga the Congress is stronger in terms of vote share and booth-level workers than the JD(S),” Dinesh Rao says. “But at the same time, we recognised that Madhu Bangarappa (of the JD(S) would make a good candidate as he was popular.”
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The ‘hit him with chappal’ remark
Despite his reticent reputation, Dinesh Rao was embroiled in a controversy when he took on Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath over the Unnao rape issue.
Just before Adityanath’s visit to Karnataka, Dinesh Rao angered the BJP after saying the UP chief minister “must be beaten with chappals (slippers).” He also called Adityanath a dhongi (fraud) and urged people of Karnataka to chase him away.
His run-in with the BJP, however, began before the 2018 Assembly elections, when the saffron outfit made references to his interfaith marriage.
Senior BJP leader Shobha Karandlaje, countering a jibe made by Siddaramaiah, raked up Dinesh Rao’s marriage.
The former CM had said that BJP leader Yeddyurappa’s visits to Dalit hamlets before the elections were an eyewash. To which, Karandlaje said, “If Siddaramaiah was so concerned about Dalits, he should get his children married to them.”
At a rally in Mangaluru, where Hindu-Muslims conflicts are rife, she went a step further. “We all know who he (Dinesh) has married,” she said.
Tabbassum took to social media to respond. “It is no secret that I was born a Muslim and my husband Dinesh Gundu Rao, a Brahmin. We have been happily married for over two decades now,” she said in a Facebook post.
“Neither of us has converted… respecting all religion is a practice followed by us. We represent the unity in diversity that India stands for… As a homemaker and a mother of two daughters, I take strong umbrage to Shobha Karandlaje trespassing into our private lives for her narrow political gains.”
Tabassum says she finds it difficult to cope with the noxiousness of politics.
“I did manage the social media handle for the Congress for a while along with Siddaramaiah’s son Dr Yatheendra, but now I have taken a backseat. I find politics extremely toxic today,” she says.
Congress-JD(S) alliance was incorrectly reported as Congress-JD(U). The report has been updated. The error is regretted.