With Congress on Saturday making a stunning comeback in Karnataka to oust the BJP from its lone southern citadel, the focus has shifted to the next CM candidate. It remains to be seen if it will be the astute veteran Siddaramaiah or the loyal general DK Shivakumar.
The Congress party has not announced its chief ministerial candidate, and all eyes are on party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi. The first meeting of the Congress Legislature Party(CLP) will be held at 5.30 pm on Sunday, according to AICC in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Surjewala. The meeting is likely to decide the name of the new chief minister.
Helped by a nearly five per cent vote swing in its favour, the Congress with a vote share of 42.88 per cent bagged 135 out of the 224 seats at stake and was leading in one, according to Election Commission data at 9 pm. The magic mark is 113. It was also the Congress' best-ever performance in Karnataka since 1999 when the party won 132 seats. The party bagged 80 seats in the 2018 elections with a vote share of 38 per cent.
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Siddaramaiah had served as the Chief Minister of Karnataka for five years from 2013 to 2018, and many in the party as well as beyond it perceive him as the next logical option. But President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee DK Shivakumar is a Congress loyalist, and the Gandhi family is known to favour loyalists.
To most Siddaramaiah could be the most obvious choice, but the Gandhi family, especially Rahul Gandhi sees the veteran politician as the perfect choice to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Siddaramaiah also said that this would be his last chief ministerial election.
But as Siddaramaiah’s prospects are taken into favour, his missteps would also be taken into account. The 76-year-old has been accused of giving disproportionate importance to officials of his Kuruba community, which has antagonised others such as the Lingayat and the Vokkaligas. His words of praise for Tipu Sultan has not gone well with many, and neither has his decision to release many PFI and SDPI activists who were facing criminal charges.
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Meanwhile this might be the best opportunity yet for DK Shivakumar to rise to the ranks of a chief minister. The eight-time MLA from Kanakapura constituency has a strong base, and is the go-to man for Congress party members. He might be one of the richest politicians in the state – as per ADR – but the party relies on his to raise funds as well.
His Achilles’ heel is the multiple cases against him by the CBI, ED and the I-T department. He also spent some 104 days in Tihar jail on charges of money laundering and tax evasion, and is currently out on bail. If he is made the CM, the BJP-led centre could expedite the cases against him.
But the cases against DK Shivakumar is also the propellant for him to bag the victory from BJP. It was not only the jail sentence but also how the sentence was given that humiliated him. DKS, as he is often called, was put in a small, dirty cell and the harshest treatment on the book was meted out.
But however it is, both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar have the raging fire in the belly to take Congress across the line.
Also read: Karnataka Election Result 2023 LIVE: Congress surges again as JDS slips to 26, BJP ahead on 74