It is all coming to a full circle in Karnataka Congress as Mallikarjun Kharge took charge as AICC president. The change in dynamics has affected the big two—former chief minister and CLP leader Siddaramaiah and KPCC president D. K. Shivakumar.
In 2006, after getting a political re-birth with a wafer-thin margin of 700 odd votes, Siddaramaiah was cooped up in his Vijaynagar residence in Bengaluru with a message to the high command that he would not step out until he was made the leader of the opposition. The then LOP at that time was Kharge who made way gracefully. Against his wish, Siddaramaiah blackmailed and pushed Kharge to contest the 2009 Lok Sabha elections so that his way was cleared to become the chief minister. His followers, Iqbal Ahmed Saradage and Baburao Chinchansoor, were targeted by the Siddaramaiah camp, and a real estate agent who is a Kuruba was brought in by cross-voting. Then again in 2019, Kharge was handed a shocking defeat in parliamentary elections by his own protégé, Umesh Jadhav, who crossed over to the BJP, and it is largely believed that Siddaramaiah had a role to play in place as he worked against the interest of the coalition to prove that there was no vote transfer between the JDS and the Congress.
With so much history between Kharge and Siddu, it was never a favourable proposition for the Kuruba leader against one of the tallest dalit leader of the party. And it played out on expected lines, as things didn’t go well for Siddaramaiah during his last visit to Delhi on Monday, when Kharge had summoned over 15 top leaders from the state to discuss election preparedness.
It was a two-hour meeting at the AICC where the blueprint for the run-up to elections with rallies, campaigns, and programs was discussed threadbare. Rallies over Mahadayi, Krishna, Mekedatu, and other river-related issues, the SC/ST convention, ‘BusYatra’ to cover 224 constituencies, seat announcements, among others were on the agenda.
Sources who attended the meeting told The Daily Guardian Review that it was refreshing to see Kharge taking the meeting of top leaders from the state as he stamped his supremacy. “The messaging was quite clear, and for Kharge it was a moment of reckoning. He was a chief ministerial aspirant from late 90s and missed the opportunity many times, once to Dharam Singh, the second was when he was dislodged from LOP by Siddaramaih who went on to become the CM. There was voting too to choose the CLP leader, and Kharge was badly defeated. All these things can never be forgotten as these are highs and lows of one’s political career,’’ he said.
For old-time congressmen, it was a treat to see Kharge boss over the meeting sitting in AICC. “D. K. Shivakumar, Dr G. Paramehwar, and Ramalinga Reddy are all true blue congressmen who have rejected the temptation of crossing over to other parties on several occasions. Now we have Kharge, who understands internal and external politics like nobody else. No blackmail politics will work, and everyone has to contribute to bringing the Congress to power, which the party will suitably reward when the time comes. All are equal stakeholders,’’ said a highly placed source.
Precisely, on these lines, Karnataka in-charge Randeep Surjewala told media outside AICC that the party is going to polls under one face but collective leadership with both D.K. and Siddaramaiah flanked to left and right.
A miffed Siddaramaiah left the party HQ huffing and puffing.