Congress cracking under severe coldwar in Karnataka

Dr. Duggaraju Srinivasa Rao

Karnataka, under Congress governance headed by Siddaramaiah, is following perfect Nehruvian secular formula, but it is damaging its own government which just completed a year in office. Nehru believed that communal, meaning religious, divide is dangerous whereas the caste division is acceptable. Following that Nehru dictum, the Karnataka Congress won the state in May 2023 election, accusing the then ruling BJP of propagating Hindu vs. Muslim politics. Added to that then prevailing corrupt image of BJP government headed by Basavaraj Bommai helped Congress to score an impressive 135 seats out of the 224 assembly seats. After winning the state, the Congress unleashed its caste agenda of playing one caste against the other to settle their internal leadership tussles. This caste politics of Congress coupled with the corruption, where a minister was forced to resign for his involvement in cooperative scam involving hundreds of crores restricted that party to 9 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Post Lok Sabha election a storm started brewing with the state level leaders, CM Siddaramaih, Deputy CM D.K. Siva Kumar (DKS) and Mallikharjuna Kharge now joining the fray, pulling the party in three different directions. Congress leaders in the state are not sure of coming back to power in 2028 elections. So their attempt to garner the positions in the available time period of four years. Hence the cold war between the incumbent CM Siddaramaiah and his deputy D.K.S. Though the leaders maintain cordiality in public, they run a high intensity cold war through their political moves aimed at upmanship. Before the national president of the party Mallikarjuna Kharge expressed his intention to return to state politics, D.K.S, the chief strategist and also the chief financier for the Congress was a contender for the CM post. The high command reportedly brokered a deal of sharing the CM post with Siddaramaih for the first two and half years followed by DKS for the remaining term.

Siddaramaih not ready to vacate the seat of CM and stick to the deal and in fact he denied such a deal. He was confident of Congress victory in Lok Sabha elections and dreamt of moving to Delhi as a cabinet minister. As a prelude to check mate DKS he played his cards and worked against the political interest of his deputy DKS. Thus he planned for the defeat of DKS brother in Lok Sabha election, and lessened DKS influence on his own community, Vokkaliga, stronghold seats. Most of the seats in the Vokkaliga dominant old Mysore area gone to community rival D.K. Kumaraswamy who became a cabinet minister in Modi cabinet. Thus Siddaramaish succeeded in pushing down the image of DKS.  Siddaramaiah fired another salvo through some of his supporters by the demand for creation three more deputy chief ministers which is obviously aimed at reducing the importance of D.K.S, the lone deputy CM at present. In retaliation, the Vokkaliga Swamy Chandrasekhara Swamiji made a direct appeal for Siddaramaih to voluntarily step down in favour of their caste man D.k.S.  To thwart Vokkaliga seer, the other group in Congress encouraged the Lingayat caste mutt heads to demand the replacement of Siddaramaiah by a person belonging to Lingayat community.

The caste conundrum in Karnataka is taken to a new level, as demand to replace the CM gained ground, Siddaramaih alerted his creation, the AHINDA ( A kannada acronym for Muslims, backward castes and Dalit) to issue a  warning the Congress high command of dire consequences, including the annihilation of party in the state if Siddaramaih is replaced. The extended cold war resulted Siddaramaih supporters reminding the Congress elders regarding its policy of one man one post. That was aimed, obviously, at replacing DKS as state party president as he holding the dual responsibility of deputy CM and PCC president. The internal conflict of Congress groups is making the administration directionless. Karnataka is reeling under financial strains as major share of budget is being taken away by the six guarantees. The people of the state are not happy as government hiked the milk, fuel prices and increase of taxes on water, liquor etc., are on cards, to meet funds for their vote catching schemes. The middle class voters are unhappy at the way Congress government is failing them and the Congress men themselves are suspicious of gaining votes through the freebies after seeing the stunning defeat of neighbouring state, Andhra Pradesh, CM Jagan losing very badly despite focussing on freebies through out his four year rule. The leadership tussle is likely to intensify as Siddaramaiah heads towards the completion of his two and half years of his rule.

(Author is retired professor. The views expressed are personal opinion of the author. He can be reached at duggarajusrinivasarao@gmail.com)