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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.

The throne of thorns in Delhi

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

hrone of thorns

The most striking image, in recent times, of Delhi’s new Chief Minister Atishi Singh, was of her being wheeled away in a stretcher after her health took a turn for the worse as she embarked on an indefinite hunger strike. Her demand was to get more water for Delhi from Haryana. Atishi was using this time-tested powerful tool of protest—a hunger strike—that also played a role during the inception of her party, the Aam Aadmi Party. For those who recall the endless television coverage, in an anti-corruption movement in 2011, Anna Hazare had gone on a fast and Arvind Kejriwal, Atishi’s party boss, had made headlines as he sat in protest. The feisty young politician who represents her party in television studios and at press conferences, is now the national capital’s new chief minister.

A prominent face in television debates and press conferences of the AAP, Atishi, a first-time Member of the Legislative Assembly was inducted into the council of minister in March 2023 after the then deputy Chief Minister and Kejriwal’s trusted lieutenant, Manish Sisodia, was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the excise policy case. Atishi, along with Saurabh Bharadwaj, joined the Delhi government following the resignation of Sisodia and Satyendar Jain and has since has been entrusted with key portfolios such as finance, education and public works. Her work profile increased to 14 departments as senior leaders of the party were implicated in irregularities in the Delhi Excise Policy. Her responsibilities, the highest among all cabinet ministers in the outgoing AAP government, included education, finance, planning, PWD, water, power and public relations, exhibiting the faith Kejriwal has in her.

Atishi’s academic credentials are impressive; an alumnus of Delhi’s St Stephen’s College, she’s been a Chevening and Rhodes scholar, where she completed a Masters’ degree in Education at Oxford University. She used her academic background to implement reforms in Delhi’s education system which won her recognition as the architect of Delhi’s education policy. Delhiites say that she’s raised standards of teaching, managed to keep fees in check and is the driving force behind the ‘entrepreneurship mindset curriculum’ and the ‘happiness curriculum’ in Delhi schools. With impeccable educational pedigree, she’s got her attention in the right places with environment-friendly policies such as pollution control, renewable energy and sustainability being key areas of focus for her.

At 43 years, Atishi is the third woman Chief Minister of the national capital of India joining the ranks of Sushma Swaraj and Sheila Dixit. Her journey to the top has been rapid and steady since 2013 when she was played a role in drafting AAP’s election manifesto and the government’s early policies. In the initial years, she was advisor to Manish Sisodia, the former deputy chief minister of Delhi where she took a keen interest in educational reforms that are believed to have brought big relief to Delhiites. While she unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and lost to BJP’s Gautam Gambhir, she won the 2020 Assembly elections from Kalkaji.

However, her accession to the top job comes at a crucial time where party bosses have faced jail on corruption charges and elections are only a few months away. The Delhi Assembly elections are scheduled for February 2025, leaving Atishi with little time to make a sizable impact from the state’s seat of power. With Kejriwal’s resignation, his entire cabinet has resigned and Atishi may rejig the ministries as the new cabinet takes oath.

She faces a belligerent BJP that will make corruption charges against Kejriwal a top issue in the upcoming elections. The AAP’s flagship scheme of doorstep delivery of services needs to energised with implementation having slacked in recent years. In this year’s state budget, Atishi had announced a financial assistance scheme to women, the Mahila Samman Nidhi Yojana, which promises a monthly amount of Rs 1000 to women above the age of 18 years. The scheme needs implementation especially in an election year.

Then there are schemes that await cabinet approval such as the Industrial and Economic Development Policy, the Electric Vehicle Policy 2.0 and Water Bill Settlement Scheme. The AAP government has promised policies to encourage employment like the Dilli Bazaar Portal and policies for start-ups and food trucks, all of which need approval with time running short.

Boards and commissions are nesting places to balance equations with political heavyweights who cannot be accommodated in the cabinet and Atishi will have to appoint senior politicians to these commissions with vacant posts.

The highest seat in government is a charming place to be in but Atishi’s elevation comes at a crucial juncture in the journey of AAP. Will she be able to bring the party back to power with people-friendly schemes? The answer lies only a few months away.

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