PEACEFUL installation of Vokkaliga strongman DK Shivakumar as Karnataka Chief Minister Elect is only half the battle won for the Congress in its southern bastion.
The real challenge, insiders say, will begin after June 3 once Shivakumar, state unit president, officially replaces Siddaramaiah in the Karnataka CMO.
The socialist veteran has after all declined Rahul Gandhi’s offer of accepting a Rajya Sabha nomination and decided to stay in the state assembly and politics instead.
Congress strategists say having ensured a smooth passing of the mantle from Siddaramaiah to Shivakumar — the first ever error-free sew of a factional tatter in the Congress — party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi are now conscious to ensure the mistakes made in Punjab in 2021 are not repeated in the south.
“Naming a new chief minister as part of the internal power transition dynamics is the easier part. The difficult part is managing the repercussions of this move. We have the Punjab example before us. The 2021 power transition experiment in Punjab did not go as per plan,” says a senior Congress source.
The reference was to the September 18, 2021 move whereby the Congress replaced Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh with Charanjit Singh Channi, the first ever Dalit CM in the state where Jat Sikh politics conventionally dominates.
The development, that had followed a phone call from Sonia Gandhi to Amarinder Singh to step down, failed to address a lasting power vacuum and in 2022 culminated in the worst ever Congress show in the history of Punjab polls — 18 seats in a house of 117 while AAP swept the elections. While Capt left the Congress to float his own party before switching over to the BJP, Channi lost both the seats he contested in 2022 state election.
Since Punjab was the first state where the Congress ever replaced a sitting CM, the results of the experiment remain on the table with key lessons learnt.
“Top Congress leaders are conscious of not repeating the old mistakes in Karnataka where we will face a tough election in 2028,” said a Congress leader adding that with Siddaramaiah refusing to move to the Centre, Shivakumar would have to constantly manage his larger than life presence in the state.
Karnataka Congress leaders also note that the post swearing in phase in the state will be the most critical to watch.
They point to Siddaramaiah’s clout with many MLAs and his mass base on account of the nurturing of a formidable social coalition of AHINDAs (the minorities and the marginalised including the OBCs and Dalits). Already before resigning as CM, Siddaramaiah, in a strategic move, unveiled the Karnataka caste census which showed that Vokkaligas and Lingayats are no longer the state’s numerically strong communities.
The survey covered 5.9 crore people and found SCs are the largest segment with 1.09 cr people, followed by Muslims 77 lakh, Lingayats 66.3 lakh, Vokkaligas 61.6 lakh, Kuruba OBCs (Siddaramaiah’s caste) 43.7 lakh and STs 42.8 lakh.
“Siddaramaiah’s appeal with his core voter base is expected to stay strong and it would be naive to assume he will abdicate his influence either over lawmakers or the masses. There is a reason he has decided to stay an MLA when he could have been a Rajya Sabha MP with greater power and presence in the national Parliament,” says a Congress insider from Karnataka adding that the competing interests would have to be carefully managed and balanced all the way up to the 2028 assembly elections.
Sources also recall how Siddaramaiah had not taken kindly to the Congress decision of allying with the JDS (which Siddaramaiah had quit in 2006 to join the Congress) installing another Vokkaliga strongman HD Kumaraswamy as Karnataka Chief Minister in 2018.
In 2019, seventeen rebel MLAs (most of them loyal to Siddaramaiah) defected from the ruling Congress-JDS combine and joined the BJP leading to the formation of the BS Yediyurappa government. No wonder in 2023 when Congress won Siddaramaiah returned as CM despite Shivakumar’s claims.
“In politics you can only be sure of today, not tomorrow. With Siddaramaiah in the assembly and his son Yathindra set to get a state cabinet berth, it will have to be seen what the future holds and if the transition that looks smooth today stays smooth tomorrow as well,” said a Congress leader pointing to the critical difference between the BJP managing to get former Bihar CM Nitish Kumar to accept a Rajya Sabha nomination in lieu of a cabinet seat for his son Nishant and the Congress which has not managed to convince Siddaramaiah to come to the Centre.
For now, the party high command has decided to wait and watch Siddaramaiah’s next moves and stay in close touch with the Congress MLAs in Karnataka.
