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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Fractured Crown

Between Siddaramaiah’s grip on power and Shivakumar’s restless ambition, the Karnataka Congress is trapped in a succession spiral. Karnataka Karnataka today has two chief ministers - one by office, the other by expectation. The power tussle between Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, has slipped so completely into the open that the Congress’s ritual denials sound like political farce. A whispered ‘understanding’ after the 2023 victory that each would get the CM’s post after...

Fractured Crown

Between Siddaramaiah’s grip on power and Shivakumar’s restless ambition, the Karnataka Congress is trapped in a succession spiral. Karnataka Karnataka today has two chief ministers - one by office, the other by expectation. The power tussle between Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, has slipped so completely into the open that the Congress’s ritual denials sound like political farce. A whispered ‘understanding’ after the 2023 victory that each would get the CM’s post after two-and-a-half years has hardened into a public confrontation between a chief minister determined to finish five years and a deputy increasingly unwilling to wait. The recent breakfast meeting between the two men at Siddaramaiah’s residence was presented as a truce where the ‘high command’ was invoked as the final arbiter. “There are no differences between us,” Siddaramaiah insisted, twice for emphasis. Few were convinced and soon, Shivakumar was again hinting darkly at change. For weeks, Shivakumar’s loyalists have been holding meetings, mobilising legislators and making pilgrimages to Delhi to get the Congress high command to honour its promise. They insist that the Congress leadership agreed to a rotational chief ministership in 2023 and that November 2025 was always meant to mark Shivakumar’s ascent. The high command, for its part, has perfected the art of strategic vagueness by neither confirming nor denying the pact. This suggests that the Congress does not merely hesitate to act against Siddaramaiah, but increasingly lacks the capacity to do so. From the outset of his second innings, Siddaramaiah has given no signal of easing aside. As he approaches January 2026, poised to overtake D. Devaraj Urs as Karnataka’s longest-serving chief minister, the symbolism is unmistakable. The mantle of social justice politics that Urs once embodied now firmly sits on Siddaramaiah’s shoulders. And it is this social coalition that shields him. His fortress is AHINDA - minorities, backward classes and Dalits. Leaked figures from the unreleased caste census suggest that these groups together approach or exceed two-thirds of the state’s population. Lingayats and Vokkaligas, once electorally dominant, are rendered numerical minorities in this arithmetic. Siddaramaiah governs not merely as a Congress leader, but as the putative custodian of Karnataka’s demographic majority. That claim is reinforced through policy. Minority scholarships have been revived, contractor quotas restored, residential schools expanded. More than Rs. 42,000 crore has been earmarked for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Kurubas, his own community, have been pitched for Scheduled Tribe status, with careful assurances that their elevation will not disadvantage others. DK Shivakumar brings organisational muscle, financial clout and control over the Vokkaliga heartland. In electoral campaigns, these are formidable assets. But in a confrontation with a leader who embodies a 60–70 percent social coalition, they are blunt instruments. The Congress high command understands this equation, even if it publicly pretends otherwise. It also remembers, uneasily, what Siddaramaiah did the last time his authority was constrained. In 2020, when the Congress–JD(S) coalition collapsed after 16 MLAs defected to Mumbai,13 of them hailed from Siddaramaiah’s camp. At the time, he held the post of coordination committee chairman. Instead, he emerged as the principal beneficiary of collapse, returning as Leader of the Opposition with a tighter grip on the party. If the Congress high command could not punish him then, it is doubtful it can coerce him now. Shivakumar’s predicament is thus more tragic than tactical. He is not battling a rival alone, but an entire political structure built to outlast him. The promised coronation looks increasingly like a mirage drifting just ahead of a man condemned to keep walking. For the Congress, the cost of this paralysis is already visible. A government elected on guarantees and governance is consumed by succession. The party’s authority is dissolving while its factions harden. The Congress returned to power in Karnataka after years in the wilderness, only to re-enact the same leadership dysfunction that has crippled it elsewhere. Regardless of whether Siddaramaiah survives this storm, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Congress cannot survive the slow corrosion of its command in one of the few states it holds today.

Goa rocks to IFFI and SFX

Updated: Nov 29, 2024

IFFI and SFX

The stretch along the Mandovi from Goa’s capital, Panaji, to Old Goa is a beehive of activity thanks to two mega events. Both interestingly started on the same day, with the International Film Festival of India or IFFI beginning 21 November, and 6 kms or so along the iconic river, relics of the 16 th century saint, Francis Xavier (SFX) being brought down from its mausoleum in a section of an iconic church, Bom Jesus, and then carried ceremoniously across the road to a nearby church for veneration.


Both events have brought people in their hundreds from all over the world and India to Goa. Attending the film festival, this writer saw filmmakers and cinephiles from all over India. There were students of cinema from as far as Tripura, and Coimbatore, Delhi, Kerala and Chennai. The festival began with the screening of the movie, Better Man, a musical based on the life of the British singer and song writer, Robbie Williams. Essaying the role of the singer was an actor who added his human voice to a computer-generated image of a monkey which was a way that film director Michael Gracey, attempted to portray Williams after he apparently asked him “If you were an animal, how would you see yourself?”


The movie opened at Inox, Panaji, the permanent IFFI venue. This is the 20 th IFFI edition which moved to Goa in 2004. This time around, movies are also being shown in Madgaum, Goa’s business capital as well as in Ponda in the hinterland, thus enabling many locals to see some of India’s best films and documentaries. Film director, the well-known Shekar Kapur, best known for Masoom was present to inaugurate the event, and also joined other international film directors to moderate a panel discussion.


Queues of similar length could be seen at Old Goa where devotees lining up to see the relics. It has been reported that Governor and Chief Minister of the state offered prayers at the relics in the morning before the main event commenced. It is to the credit of the state government that it has pulled out all stops to ensure that the event runs smoothly. Transportation arrangements include special buses by the state-owned transport from Panjim to Old Goa. There has also been a special stamp cancellation to commemorate this one in a decade event.


The banks of the Mandovi are now alight with lights adorning the street lamp posts and trees that line the roads that run along the city’s periphery all the way to Miramar beach.


Both the IFFI and the exposition of the relics will segue into events and merry-making leading up to Christmas and the New Year. Recently, a venue was announced for Sunburn a popular music festival that has run into controversy for its impact on the state’s fragile environment as well as the fact that it allegedly encourages a drug culture. Many locals are now increasingly vocal about the fact that the environment suffers the most and also, the state known for its clean environs has seen a big deterioration in air quality with a real-time AQI of 144 which is poor rating. This is an area of concern for a state that wants to attract quality tourists and also preserve a way of life in harmony with nature.


(The author is a senior journalist based in Goa. Views personal.)

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