After four days of intense talks, the Congress leadership resolved the tussle over the Chief Minister of Karnataka. As expected, Siddaramaiah will take over as the chief minister. Shivakumar will take oath as the sole Deputy Chief Minister with some important portfolios. Shivakumar will continue to be the president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee. Both will take oath on May 20. Siddaramaiah will take over as the Chief Minister for the second time. Siddaramaiah is seen as a mass leader with socialist leanings.
Do not keep mobile phone with you
He is said to never compromise on his secular credentials. As the face of the Congress’ spectacular comeback in Karnataka, 76-year-old Siddaramaiah has many facets to his personality. He is a leader who does not carry a mobile phone with him. He talks to everyone, even the most important people, through his personal assistant. He keeps the poor at the center of his politics. Siddaramaiah is an astute politician who knows the power of the people and has almost always been able to outwit his rivals.
Siddha was associated with the roots of ‘Janata Parivar’
For nearly two and a half decades, Siddaramaiah tried his best to weaken the Congress by connecting with the roots of the ‘Janata Parivar’. Coming from a family of poor farmers, Siddaramaiah was a staunch opponent of the Congress from the early 1980s till 2005, but after former prime minister HD Deve Gowda’s ouster from the JD(S), he joined the ‘hand’ he opposed were doing Siddaramaiah, a seasoned politician known for his calmness, firmness and outspokenness, fulfilled his ambition of taking over the reins of the state in 2013 when he was made the chief minister by the Congress party.
So have you fought your last election?
These qualities have once again brought Siddaramaiah, a nine-time MLA, to this post after a gap of five years. He has been re-elected as the leader of the Congress Legislature Party to lead the party’s government in the state for the second time. The Congress leader (75) had already declared that the recently concluded assembly polls would be his last. He also did not hide his ambition that he wanted to end his active political innings at the “height”.
The credit also goes to Siddaramaiah for sidelining Congress heavyweights in the race to become the chief minister. This time he asked State Congress President D.K. Shivakumar, while in 2013, he left behind M. Mallikarjun Kharge (current Congress President and then Union Labor and Employment Minister). After a fractured mandate in Karnataka in 2004, the Congress and the JD(S) formed a coalition government. Siddaramaiah, who was then in the JD(S), was made deputy chief minister, while Congress’s N. Dharam Singh became the Chief Minister. Siddaramaiah’s complaint is that he had a chance to become chief minister, but Deve Gowda ruined his chances.
Siddaramaiah was sacked by JD(S)
Siddaramaiah belongs to the Kuruba community which is the third largest population in the state. Siddaramaiah decided to position himself as a leader of the backward classes and organized Ahinda (an acronym in Kannada for minorities, backward classes and Dalits) conferences. This happened coincidentally at a time when Deve Gowda’s son H.D. Kumaraswamy was seen as an emerging leader in the party. Siddaramaiah was expelled from the JD(S). He had previously served as the state unit chief of the party. Critics of the party said that he was removed because Deve Gowda was keen to promote Kumaraswamy as the leader of the party.
Advocate Siddaramaiah even at that time had expressed the idea of ’retiring from politics’ and returning to the legal profession. He ruled out the possibility of forming his own party, saying that he could not raise funds. Both the BJP and the Congress had wooed him and offered him a position in the party, but he had said that he did not agree with the ideology of the BJP. He joined the Congress in 2006 with supporters. This was a step that was unthinkable a few years ago.
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