top of page

By:

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.

New Frontlines of Tradition and Change

Updated: Nov 7, 2024

Frontlines

The Buldhana and Akola Assembly constituencies in Maharashtra’s Western Vidarbha, traditionally bastions of the ruling Shiv Sena and the BJP, could now see new battles in the upcoming Assembly election.


The November polls promise to test the resilience of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) under Prakash Ambedkar in Akola, and the influence of caste and communal dynamics in these economically struggling districts. Though Akola has been a BJP bastion, Prime Minister is set to hold one of the first rallies (November 9) in this poll here, indicating the saffron party needs heavyweight support in the district.

Frontlines

Akola has been a BJP stronghold since 2004 with the party’s ideological base shaped by the early days of the Ram Mandir movement. The recent Lok Sabha poll showed the ruling party navigate the choppy waters by replacing their longtime leader in Akola, Sanjay Dhotre, with his son and thus avert a potential electoral setback.


In Buldhana, the undivided Shiv Sena has held sway since the 1990s by riding on the appeal of the late Sena founder Bal Thackeray’s firebrand oratory that captivated the Bahujan and OBC youth, wowing them away from the Congress. However, the district has also historically been a challenging place for women candidates within Shiv Sena ranks.


After the 2022 split in the Sena ranks, this year, Uddhav Thackeray’s opposition Sena (UBT) faction is breaking tradition by nominating Jayashree Shelke, a former Congress leader, as the MVA candidate for the Buldhana Assembly seat.


This marks the first time the Sena (divided or otherwise) has fielded a woman candidate in a major election here. Shelke’s candidacy signifies an attempt to both reach disenchanted Congress supporters and potentially set a historic milestone as the district’s first female MLA, should she succeed.

Yet her road to victory is far from smooth. She faces Sanjay Gaikwad of the rival Shiv Sena, a local figure whose record of controversial statements reflects the abrasive brand of Shiv Sena politics that has resonated with a segment of Buldhana’s electorate.


Meanwhile, the VBA, under Ambedkar’s leadership, continues to exert a disruptive influence across constituencies in Akola, where Ambedkar had been an MP in past decades. Though the VBA came a cropper in the 2024 Lok Sabha, with its vote share drastically plummeting, it still retains the capacity to queer the pitch.


In the 2019 Assembly elections, the VBA’s alliance with the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) splintered votes across a number of seats, denying the Congress-NCP-Shiv Sena alliance (the MVA) several victories in key constituencies. In this year’s Lok Sabha election, the VBA failed to repeat its act. And yet, it cut into the opposition MVA’s votes in the Akola and Buldhana Lok Sabha seats, where the votes polled by the VBA’s candidates sealed the fates of the MVA contestants.


Ambedkar, recovering from recent health issues, has claimed that the OBCs – traditionally BJP’s core base in the state – will not vote saffron; his proclamations come amid his efforts to stitch a coalition of OBCs, SCs and STs. Yet, the strength of the VBA’s grassroots support will determine in this election whether the party will retain its status as a spoiler or whether the time has come to write Ambedkar’s political obituary.

Comments

bottom of page