During the Lok Sabha election campaigns in southern Karnataka, both Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, apart from seeking votes for the party's candidates, also did a bit of self-campaigning to retain or upgrade their positions.
Urging the people of his Varuna Assembly constituency – a segment of the Chamarajanagar Lok Sabha constituency – to support the Congress candidate Sunil Bose, son of minister HC Mahadevappa, Siddaramaiah had said: "Give him a lead of at least 60,000 votes in Varuna, if you want to see me remain as chief minister." Bose did eventually win the seat.
Around the same time, in Mandya, Shivakumar, who has made his chief ministerial ambitions no secret, told voters that "the desire with which you supported the party in the Assembly poll in May last year by keeping me in mind will not turn out to be false." However, the Congress party lost the Mandya parliamentary seat to former CM and Janata Dal (Secular) candidate HD Kumaraswamy.
Adding insult to injury, Shivakumar's brother and Bengaluru Rural MP DK Suresh was defeated by a political greenhorn and noted cardiologist CN Manjunath, who contested on a BJP ticket. Suresh had represented Bengaluru Rural since 2014. Manjunath is the son-in-law of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda.
The BJP, for the fourth time in a row, ensured it secured the maximum number of seats, with the winning candidates banking heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image. With the JD(S) as its ally, the party won 19 of the total 28 seats and the Congress bagged the remaining 9. The JD(S) was given three seats, of which it won two.
The Congress banked on its five guarantees, of which most were women-centric. Just as in the 2023 Assembly polls, more number of women came out to vote this time. Of the nine seats the Congress won, five were from the Kalyan Karnataka districts of Bidar, Kalaburagi, Raichur, Ballari, and Koppal.
What Results Mean for Shivakumar's Future
According to political observers, the efforts put in by the state Congress to ensure its candidates' victory were unprecedented. Setting aside their differences, observers claim that both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar worked unitedly like they did during the Assembly elections in 2023, which fetched the party 136 seats.
The Congress was hoping to win between 15 and 20 seats, according to Siddaramaiah, so the victory of just nine seats may have some fallout for the party leaders.
As a political strategy to get the maximum number of seats, the party leadership had given 13 tickets to the kin of leaders, of which nine were ministers' children. Of them, only three won. The tickets were reportedly given on the condition that if they lose, the ministers would be termed "non-performers."
The defeated candidates' parents are all senior leaders and influential ministers, who were inducted into the cabinet based on their caste and region.
Meanwhile, the debate over Shivakumar replacing Siddaramaiah after the Lok Sabha polls by camp followers of both leaders has not ceased in spite of warnings from the party's high command. However, with Shivakumar's brother losing in Bengaluru Rural, which was seen as their fiefdom, talk in Congress circles is that the Deputy Chief Minister's bargaining power for the top post has weakened. Also heading the state Congress unit since 2020, Shivakumar has been hinting at a new face taking over.
At the same time, Shivakumar is the Congress high command's troubleshooter who has stuck his neck out whenever the party has been in peril. Even his detractors admit that none can match his organisation skills and ability to mobilise resources.
The parliamentary polls also witnessed a tussle between Shivakumar and Kumaraswamy to establish themselves as the leader of the Vokkaliga community in the old Mysuru region. In the 2023 Assembly polls, the Congress won all the Assembly segments in Mandya district, which will now be represented by Kumaraswamy.
'Had Been Expecting To Win More Seats': Siddaramaiah
Siddaramaiah, too, has his share of setbacks. The Congress losing the Mysuru-Kodagu Lok Sabha seat to BJP candidate and erstwhile scion of Mysuru royal family Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar is an embarrassment to the Chief Minister, who has a running feud with the royal family.
As finance minister in the Janata Parivar government, he had initiated measures for acquiring the sprawling Bangalore Palace, which was legally challenged by the same family, with the Supreme Court ordering to maintain status quo.
Soon after the conclusion of the two-phase poll in the state, Dalit ministers met over dinner to revive the demand for allocating the Chief Minister's post to their community. However, Congress sources dismissed speculations of the party high command replacing Siddaramaiah.
"While there are many leaders in the party who are chief minister material, their leadership is confined to a district or region, unlike Siddaramaiah, who has a pan-Karnataka image," they maintained.
Speaking to the media after the results, Siddaramaiah admitted that the Congress in Karnataka could not meet its estimation of winning 15 to 20 seats. But the Congress had improved its vote share from 31.88% in 2019 to 45.34% this time as against the BJP's, which had dropped from 51.38% to 46.04% now.
He also attributed the overall low polling as one of the reasons for the Congress failing to get the numbers.
Shivakumar said the party had been expecting to win more seats. "We thought the guarantees would help us. We will deliberate on the results and try to find out why voters haven't supported us as we expected," he added.
Will the BJP-JD(S) Alliance Continue?
During the elections, Kumaraswamy clarified that the JD(S) alliance with the BJP in future would depend on how the latter treats them. He is looking forward to a berth in the Union Cabinet once the NDA forms the government.
Elections to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, other urban bodies, and panchayats are due in Karnataka – and going by past instances, the JD(S) has a history of allying with parties to suit its political convenience.
The results have, meanwhile, given political rebirth to three BJP members who had lost the Assembly polls. Former Speaker Vishveshwar Hegde Kageri, former CM Jagadish Shettar – who rejoined the BJP after a brief stint in the Congress – and former ministers K Sudhakar and V Somanna have won.
Assembly by-elections will be held in the constituencies of former CMs Basavaraj Bommai and Kumaraswamy and Congress' E Tukaram, who are MPs now.
(Naheed Ataulla is a senior political journalist based in Bengaluru. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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