Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 17: Suspense over the choice of the new Karnataka chief minister continued even four days after the election results were declared on Saturday as both the aspirants are learnt to have refused to budge from their stand for the top post despite several formulae for solution offered by the party leadership.
The party sources said during the several rounds of talks the high command leaders had with the former chief minister Siddaramaiah and the state party chief DK Shivakumar, several offers were made to the two top leaders, but none were acceptable to them as both continued to demand the top job without budging from their respective positions.
The Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi made two offers to Shivakumar but the two-hour meet remained inconclusive, with the top post contender turning down both options, sources said.
The first option gave Shivakumar the state’s single Deputy Chief Minister post alongside his current job — heading the state party unit. He was also offered six ministries of his choice. The offer indicated the party’s drive to reach an amicable solution even by violating its own standard of one-man one-post rule enforced by Rahul Gandhi when Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was asked to run for the post of the party president last year.
There was also second option of power sharing between Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah. Under this, Siddaramaiah was to get the top post for two years, and would have been followed by Shivakumar for three years, sources said. But this option was not acceptable to neither leader, sources said, as neither of them were prepared to go second.
As the suspense over the choice on Wednesday, the BJP had a dig at the Congress and the grand old party hit back. Earlier on Wednesday, outgoing Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai talked about the lack of clarity about who will be picked to head the state. “Congress is yet to finalise its CM candidate despite getting a majority,” Bommai said in Bengaluru. “This shows the internal situation in the party. The aspirations of people are more important than politicking. Congress should choose a CM as soon as possible.”
On Tuesday, BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya went on to call the talks for the selection of new CM a “Congress circus.” He said a sorry state of affairs prevails in the Congress and added that Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge sees himself more as a “postman.” Malviya tweeted, “Want to watch circus? Watch the Congress select their CM in Karnataka. The BJP also holds discussions and deliberations to elect its CMs and has often ensured smooth transition of power, even between CMs. Despite elaborate consultations, you will never find BJP aspirants falling over each other, rallying supporters and issuing veiled threats to the Party through the media.”
“Just to refresh memories of PM’s drum-beaters especially. 2017 UP Vidhan Sabha election results out on March 11th. Yogi appointed CM 8 days later on March 19th. 2021 Assam Vidhan Sabha election results out on May 3rd. Himanta Biswa Sarma became CM 7 days later on May 10th. There are many more such examples,” Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh tweeted on Wednesday.
While in 2017 Adityanath took oath on March 19, eight days after the results were announced, last year the UP and his team were sworn in on March 25, over two weeks after the results were announced. Along with Assam — where the election results were out on May 2, 2021, and the CM took oath on May 10 — there was a delay in Uttarakhand too last year. While the results were out on March 10, Pushkar Singh Dhami returned to the CM’s chair only on March 23. In Tripura, the only north-eastern state where the BJP returned to power on its own strength in March, CM Manik Saha took the oath of office on March 9, exactly a week after the results were announced. The delay there was attributed to the BJP’s attempts to get the TIPRA Motha regional party on board.
While the Karnataka election results were announced on Saturday, the Congress has not yet finalised its CM pick but All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of Karnataka Randeep Singh Surjewala said in New Delhi on Wednesday, “Whenever we take the decision, today or tomorrow, we will announce it. It is a matter of today or tomorrow that we will have a new leader of the CLP (Congress Legislature Party).”
Shivakumar is learnt to be insisting on the top post, citing his work over the last four years: Rebuilding the party after a chunk of its MLAs walked out toppling the alliance government with HD Kumaraswamy and leading it to the massive mandate in the last week’s assembly election.
Failure to find a solution acceptable to all may cost the Congress dear in next year’s general election. While Mr Shivakumar has a following among the state’s politically crucial Vokkaligas, Siddaramaiah has the support of the AHINDA platform — an old social combination of minorities, Other Backward Classes, and Dalits, which had voted en masse for the Congress.
The party leadership is keen to avoid a repetition of Rajasthan where the rift between Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and senior leader Sachin Pilot had brought the government to the brink of collapse. In Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath’s government actually collapsed after Jyotiraditya Scindia walked out with 22 loyalists.
Shivakumar, though, has ruled out rebellion. “If the party wants, they can give me the responsibility… Ours is a united house. I don’t want to divide anyone here. Whether they like me or not, I am a responsible man. I will not backstab, and I will not blackmail,” he has said.
Settling the question of the top post between Mr Shivakumar and Mr Siddaramaiah, however, could be the smaller hurdle for the Congress, compared to pleasing the Lingayats, whose turnaround has contributed largely to its victory. A key Lingayat organisation has staked claim to the Chief Minister’s post, arguing that the party would not reach where it is without their support.
Digging his heels in, Shivakumar reportedly told the central leaders that Siddaramaiah, both as the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) and while Chief Minister, had held his personal interests above that of the party’s.
Meanwhile, security was stepped up in Ramanagara, the home district of D. K. Shivakumar, on Wednesday as a precautionary measure in light of his supporters staging protests at multiple places after some media outlets claimed that he lost the race for the Chief Minister’s post to Siddaramaiah. An alert has been sounded in Ramanagara where police personnel were deployed at important public places and the district Congress office to prevent any untoward incident, official sources said.
