The cold war or open battles will continue in the ruling party in Karnataka, telling on the governance, until the leadership issue is resolved.
Published Jan 23, 2025 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Jan 23, 2025 | 9:00 AM
CM Siddaramaiah & DyCM DK Shivakumar
Internal squabbles of the Congress in Karnataka showed signs of reaching a boiling point recently, prompting the party’s high command to intervene twice a week to pacify the warring factions.
While the first one, mediated by the AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka, Randeep Singh Surjewala, did little to quell the tension within the organisation, party president M Mallikarjun Kharge himself had to enter the scene and ask those indulging in a statement war to “shut up or face action”.
It has been close to a week after Kharge’s headmaster-like warning. Knowing the Congress leaders’ penchant for speaking before the media on party matters, it remains to be seen how long the clamp on statements will remain. It is an uneasy calm that may shatter at any time.
The principal dramatis personae in the factional fight are Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shiva Kumar.
Siddaramaiah is a strong leader of the backward classes, a vote catcher for the party and his shepherd (Kuruba) community has a significant voter base in a majority of the assembly constituencies of the state.
Shivakumar, a Vokkaliga leader, is known to be a good organiser and the party leadership depends on him not just for Karnataka but also in other states. Because of his organisational skills, the party depended on him during elections in Maharashtra, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, etc.
Recently, he launched the party promise of the ‘Pyari Deedi’ scheme ahead of the Delhi elections.
The crux of the Karnataka trouble is the supposed `power sharing’ – in other words, the sharing of the chief minister’s post equally between the two leaders.
Shivakumar group believes that an agreement was hammered out by the high command when Siddaramaiah was declared the chief minister that he would hold the post for the first 30 months and hand it over to Shivakumar who will occupy the chair for the remaining term.
Both groups have been issuing statements on ‘power transfer’ now and then since Siddaramaiah was sworn in.
The internecine power battle took a turn for the worse as the pro-Siddaramaiah faction’s dinner meetings increased. What incensed Shivakumar was a dinner hosted by PWD Minister Satish Jarkiholi, a leader of the Nayaka (ST) community from Belagavi district who has a following among the party MLAs.
This meeting was held when the deputy chief minister was on a tour of Turkiye to celebrate the New Year. Soon after, Home Minister G Parameshwara announced that he would host a dinner meeting in which Dalit leaders would participate.
Parameshwara, a Dalit and former KPCC president, has an eye on the chief minister’s post while Jarkiholi wants to be state party unit chief, which Shivakumar now holds.
The meeting at Jarkiholi’s residence demanded that the ‘one-person-one-post’ Udaipur resolution be implemented, which indirectly meant that Shivakumar should be removed from the party chief’s post.
Shivakumar was angry over the outcome of the meeting which he felt Siddaramaiah himself orchestrated as he was also present at the dinner. Shivakumar landed in Delhi directly from Turkiye, met party leaders, especially Surjewala, and stopped Parameshwara from holding the dinner meeting.
This angered the Dalit leaders and the Siddaramaiah group even as one of them – Minister K N Rajanna – wanted to know if the high command was “anti-Dalit”.
Soon the high command, realising the seriousness of the internal fight, rushed Surjewala to Bengaluru. He held a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) but it failed to thrash out the differences.
At the CLP meeting, Shivakumar praised his confidant, Minister Lakshmi Hebbalkar, who hails from Belagavi and is seen as a bete-noire of Jarkiholi, for the construction of the party office in the city, the latter got up and found fault with Shivakumar in praising Hebbalkar alone.
The next day, he met Surjewala and demanded the removal of Shivakumar as party president. He told the media later, “If not, the high command should make it clear that it is continuing Shivakumar as state party chief”.
Later, at a preparatory meeting for a Congress convention in Belagavi, Jarkiholi’s followers created a ruckus raising the issue of his contribution to the construction of the party office in the city and against Hebbalkar. While this happened in front of Shivakumar, Jarkiholi watched his followers creating a commotion.
Later, Shivakumar and his brother DK Suresh, a former MP, held a meeting with Surjewala.
Meanwhile, reports emerged that followers of Siddaramaiah have urged him to impress upon the high command to remove Surjewala as in charge of the party’s Karnataka affairs as he has failed to take all sections along and was favouring Shivakumar.
While there was no confirmation of this, Shivakumar blamed the media for creating confusion.
The Siddaramaiah supporters, it seems, blamed Surjewala for changing the title of “Swabhimani Samavesha”, a convention proposed to be organised by Siddaramaiah’s supporters in Hassan city, to “Jana Kalyana Samavesha” thus making it a party show and not that of Siddaramaiah supporters’.
The change took place because of Shivakumar, Siddaramaiah’s supporters argued. Secondly, Shivakumar prevailed upon Surjewala to call up Parameshwara and ask him not to hold the meeting of Dalit leaders.
Surjewala was doing all these at the behest of Shivakumar, the chief minister’s supporters reportedly alleged. Jarkiholi said he has not made any complaint against Surjewala and that his relations with the latter “are cordial”.
So, what next? The fragile peace may not last long, given the Congress party’s nature of unending factional tussles – like the BJP’s in Karnataka. Siddaramaiah’s followers, while supporting him, also wanted to carve out space for themselves should he finally quit as the chief minister.
In case of a change of chief minister, their followers do not want Shivakumar to take over but a SC or OBC leader succeeding Siddaramaiah. They want the chief minister’s post to stay with them and not shift to a dominant community to which Shivakumar belongs.
Shivakumar, on his part, is depending totally on the high command, which is perceived to have a soft corner towards him. He knows clearly that he does not enjoy majority support within the CLP and hence keeps saying that he will abide by what the leadership says.
Still, in the current round of power struggle, Shivakumar has not played his cards well – he has antagonised a significant section of Dalits and OBC MLAs as well as leaders.
Interestingly, to a question from the media recently, he said the Congress government would continue for the full five years but refrained from saying Siddaramaiah would be the chief minister during those five years.
Until the question of leadership is resolved, the cold war or open battles will continue in the ruling party in the state, telling on the governance.
(BS Arun is a political commentator based in Bengaluru. Views are personal. Edited by Majnu Babu).
