Bengaluru: The power transfer tussle in Karnataka has reached a flash point, where the Congress high command has to come out with a decision whether it is willing to replace the incumbent Chief Minister Siddaramaiah with the Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar.
The decision will have a long lasting bearing on the ruling Congress party in Karnataka, which is one of the last strong bastions of Congress in the country.
Any wrong move, the Congress in Karnataka would face a similar situation of eroding the complete base on the lines with Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab, which happened over a period of time.
On Friday, the two leaders made significant statements over power sharing. While Siddaramaiah asserted that he was elected by the Legislature Party to be chief minister for five years and there was no talk about power transfer after two and a half years, Shivakumar smiled and said that the high command was involved in power sharing talks and they would take a decision at an appropriate time.
For Shivakumar, the prospectus hangs in balance, as he has a very short time to make it. When the issue cropped up in November, LOP Rahul Gandhi had promised to convene a meeting after he returned from Germany tour. Going by the schedule, the only date available for the meeting is Dec 24. Shivakumar is hoping to get a call on that day. If the meeting does not take place on Dec 24, Rahul Gandhi will be available between Janu 4 to Jan 14.
If D K Shivakumar has to become Chief Minister, it has to be in these 11 dates. Later, the Parliament Budget session would begin and the State Budget Session would follow. By then, the elections to five states would be announced and Shivakumar will have bleak chances of becoming the Chief Minister.
It is not a secret that Sonia Gandhi had promised Shivakumar Chief Ministerial post during the 2023 elections. However, Rahul Gandhi, who was fascinated about Siddaramaiah's 'AHINDA' movement story, decided otherwise. In a closed door meeting with AICC President Kharge, AICC General Secretaries K C Venugopal, Randeep Singh Surjewala, it was decided that Siddaramaiah would be Chief Minister during the first half of the term and later he would organise `AHINDA' for Congress in the National level.
Siddaramaiah is not talking about the decision taken during the meeting with the high command in 2023. He is just talking about the Legislature Party meeting in 2023, where he was declared elected as CLP leader of Karnataka and the Chief Minister.
Now, if the party high command asks him to step down as per the 2023 agreement in Delhi, a narrative would be set that the Congress removed a popular OBC leader and replaced him with a powerful community leader. If it remains silent, the message would be that the Congress takes party loyalists for granted.
While AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge is ready to implement any decision taken by Rahul Gandhi, the two General Secretaries -- Surjewala and Venugopal have taken different stands. While Surjewala backs Shivakumar, Venugopal needs Siddaramaiah to continue, hoping that it would help his prospectus during general elections in his home state of Kerala. .
Siddaramaiah, who is putting onus of removing him on the party high command has nothing to lose. Since he joined Congress in 2008, he is enjoying power either as the opposition leader or as the Chief Minister. However, Shivakumar has toiled in the party for over four decades and stood with the party in the most difficult times. Not honouring the promise made in 2023 would send a wrong signal among the Congressmen, who have been with the party for a long time.
Though Siddaramaiah is popularly known as `AHINDA' (Minorities, Backward and Dalit combination) leader, he is more popular among the Minority community and the Kuruba community to which he belongs. Most of the other backward communities and Dalits are not totally behind his `AHINDA' movement. He is most unpopular among two powerful communities -- Lingayats and Vokkaligas.
On the other hand, Shivakumar has many enemies even in the traditional Congress leaders also. However, he's a trusted lieutenant of the high command, especially Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. He is also favorite of the first time MLAs, for whose victory in 2023, Shivakumar had started working in 2022 itself. Since BJP was going down and no sign of JD(S) making it to form government, Vokkaligas had supported Congress, anticipating that Shivakumar would become the Chief Minister.
With so many permutations and combinations, the Congress appears to have all set to lose its base in Karnataka, whether Siddaramaiah is replaced with D K Shivakumar or not.
