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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.

OBC Oversight

The expansion of the new Mahayuti cabinet led by CM Devendra Fadnavis has set tongues wagging. The conspicuous exclusion of OBC leaders like Chhagan Bhujbal, Sudhir Mungantiwar and Sanjay Kunte has sparked speculation of the move being an emerging risk for the Mahayuti coalition, especially BJP.


To offset this, the ruling coalition has done a ‘strategic recalibration’ by inducting the BJP’s Pankaja Munde and her cousin, the NCP’s Dhananjay Munde in the cabinet. However, this prompts the question whether the Munde cousins can fill the leadership vacuum among Maharashtra’s OBCs. The BJP’s dominance in Maharashtra has always been a delicate juggling act — satisfying the aspirations of its urban, upper-caste core while appeasing its growing OBC voter base. It was Pankaja’s father, the late Gopinath Munde, whose deft welding of the diffuse OBC communities made it a potent vote-bank.


The last 18 months have seen Chhagan Bhujbal, a stalwart member of the ruling Ajit Pawar’s NCP, emerge as the most vocal voice of the OBCs by taking a firm stance against Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil. Bhujbal, projecting himself as an ‘elder’ leader concerned with safeguarding the OBC community’s reservation pie against Maratha encroachment, had managed to gather the fragmented OBC castes and sub-castes during his rallies to counter Jarange-Patil’s insistent demand of securing a Maratha quota under the OBC category. Bhujbal’s stance had resulted in strains within the erstwhile cabinet under CM Eknath Shinde.


Now, Bhujbal has cried foul over his exclusion in ‘Mahayuti 2.0,’ hinting that his advocacy for OBCs may have cost him a cabinet berth. While Bhujbal’s outspokenness may have made him a liability in Ajit Pawar’s calculations, sidelining him underscores the Mahayuti’s tenuous position in balancing the demands of its OBC base and the politically assertive Marathas.


In this context, the induction of the Munde siblings, Pankaja and Dhananjay, appears a calculated move. The BJP and the Mahayuti seek to tap into Munde’s enduring appeal among OBC voters. Yet, the choice is fraught with challenges. Pankaja Munde, estranged from the BJP’s leadership for years, has been a vocal critic of Devendra Fadnavis, even blaming him for her 2019 electoral defeat. Though all that is water under the bridge, the Munde family’s chequered political record and internal dynamics could undermine the Mahayuti’s efforts to project them as the new torchbearers of OBC politics.


Complicating matters further is the simmering tension between Maharashtra’s OBCs and Marathas. Jarange-Patil, who remained quiescent during the Assembly polls, has again threatened to go on a collective strike from January 25 next year, intensifying his demand for Marathas to be included under the OBC category.


In Maharashtra’s fractious politics, where caste and coalitions shape outcomes, the BJP’s gamble hinges on the Munde cousins rising as credible OBC leaders. Whether this youthful shift strengthens the BJP or backfires remains uncertain.

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