With Siddaramaiah Out, Congress High Command’s Writ Prevails

The seemingly smooth transition in Karnataka is being seen as a departure from the Congress party’s struggle to engineer leadership changes in states in recent years. After more than a year of leadership tussle since the Congress came to power in Karnataka in May 2023, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was asked to resign, making way for his deputy, DK Shivkumar, to take over.

At a breakfast get-together hosted by Siddaramaiah before he resigned last week, the outgoing chief minister told his cabinet colleagues that his decision to quit had come at the direction of the high command. This has come as a surprise because it seems like a rare occasion when a regional heavyweight has given in to the high command’s diktat.

In the past 12 years, since the Congress lost power at the Centre, the Congress high command had tried more than once to engineer changes in state leadership but failed because regional power players refused to fall in line. This gave an impression that the Congress leadership’s writ had weakened after three successive defeats in general elections.

The perception that the Congress leadership is not in full command of party matters was also seen in Kerala, where the party took nearly a fortnight to declare its chief ministerial candidate.

Anyway, the power-sharing formula worked out in Karnataka by the Congress leadership between Siddaramaiah and Shivkumar needed the high command’s intervention to succeed, though the leadership was helpless when a similar arrangement had failed to succeed in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh earlier.

Leadership tussles in states

Like Shivkumar, widely credited for the Congress victory in Karnataka, Sachin Pilot was seen as the man who made the Congress party’s victory possible in Rajasthan in 2018. The political buzz then was that Ashok Gehlot, who was made the chief minister because he enjoyed the support of a majority of MLAs, would relinquish his post after two and a half years. But Gehlot refused to step down.

Pilot rebelled in July 2020 by trying to leave the party. However, after failing to get the support of a majority of MLAs, Pilot made peace with Gehlot but lost his post as deputy chief minister and state Congress chief. Gehlot was offered the Congress president’s post in 2022 to clear the way for Pilot, but he declined the offer. Gehlot completed his term, but the Congress lost the next assembly election.

In Chhattisgarh, too, a similar rotation arrangement between Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and TS Singh Deo had failed to materialise. Baghel stayed on to complete his term, but the Congress lost the assembly election in 2023.

Earlier, in Madhya Pradesh, Jyotiraditya Scindia’s exit from the Congress in March 2020 was said to have been triggered by the party’s inability to make him either the chief minister or offer Scindia the post of state party president. His alienation from the state’s power structure made Scindia join the BJP, bringing down the Kamal Nath-headed government. Needless to say, Congress lost the next assembly election.

BJP high command contrast

Contrast this with how the BJP high command operates: it changes chief ministers when the central leadership feels the need to do so, either to beat anti-incumbency or when it feels the party may not win the next assembly poll under the incumbent’s leadership. Sometimes, its chief ministerial choices are absolutely surprising and unexpected.

This tells us a lot about the high command’s power inside India’s powerful ruling party. Both the BJP and the Congress operate as centralised power structures, but the difference lies between the high command’s diktat in both parties. The BJP’s central command always has its way, while the Congress leadership often struggles.

This can be explained by the fact that the central leadership’s control over the party is directly related to the popularity and power of its national leadership. It is obvious that when the party’s electoral prospects look good, riding on the popular appeal of the national leader, state leaders capitulate before the high command, and the party leadership finds it easier to impose its chief ministerial candidates on state legislatures. This was the case with the Congress high command in its heyday, and the BJP, since its national consolidation in 2014, has replicated the high command culture quite effectively.

Congress high command asserts itself

On the other hand, as the Congress’s current and recent predicament shows, a politically weaker central leadership finds it difficult to control the various factions of its state units, which has sometimes resulted in the exit of several of its ambitious regional leaders.

Since political power decides the central leadership’s control over the party, the BJP, like the Congress in the 1970s and 1980s, has been able to appoint low-profile and often political lightweights as chief minister in many states, while the Congress leadership finds it difficult to deal with popular and assertive state leaders.

The Karnataka episode is also in contrast with the ham-handed manner in which the Congress had replaced Amarinder Singh with Charanjit Singh Channi in Punjab six months before the March 2022 election, which the grand old party lost badly to the Aam Aadmi Party.

So, what changed this time? It is apparent that the Congress high command, besides honouring its promise, has rewarded Shivkumar for his patience, discipline, and loyalty to the leadership, despite facing ED raids and jail time.

Another reason cited by political observers is that Siddaramaiah was favoured by a majority of MLAs in 2023 because of his stature as a mass leader capable of heading a social coalition. Now, in 2026, there was apprehension about whether he would be able to lead the Congress to victory in 2028. This realisation made Siddaramaiah’s supporters amenable to the change.

A possible third reason is that the Congress high command has a little more political capital, more so after the party’s improved performance in the Lok Sabha in the 2024 general election, besides its return to power with a massive mandate in Kerala last month and the decisive role it played in government formation in Tamil Nadu.

By rewarding patience and discipline in Karnataka, respecting party workers’ sentiments in Kerala, and putting the party’s interest before the alliance in Tamil Nadu, the Congress leadership has asserted itself decisively to maintain a balance between keeping party unity and allowing state leaders some autonomy. How it extends this nationally remains to be seen.

The writer is a senior independent Mumbai-based journalist. He tweets at @ali_chougule

Published on: Thursday, June 04, 2026, 09:31 PM IST