How to lose even with a popular mass leader: Congress’ next low in Karnataka?
KS Muralidharan
India’s grand old party, the Congress, has the best ever chance of packing off the BJP from power in Karnataka and give itself a much needed booster dose ahead of 2024 LS polls, but it is infected by its age-old pandemic of factionalism.
Its State president, DK Shivakumar cannot see eye to eye with the party’s biggest mascot, former chief minister, Siddaramaiah, but he is getting away because of his reputation of being a formidable organizer, which is shorthand for fund-raising ability.
There are other caste groupings and antagonists as well. After becoming the national president, Mallikarjuna Kharge has quickly realized that his chances as a compromise candidate carry more weight than before. Also, like his colleague, Rajasthan CM, Ashok Gehlot, he too would prefer being CM than the national president, if and when the he smells a whiff of an informal offer.
However, the biggest irony facing the Congress is Siddaramaiah. In terms of charm and charisma, pedigree and personality, Siddaramaiah is unquestioned even by his diehard opponents. He is clearly the biggest hurdle in the path of the BJP to storm back to power. At the same time, the irony is he is himself desperately searching for a safe seat!
This anomaly is hard to explain and perhaps unique only to Indian politics.
A rustic orator with his own inimitable style, Siddaramaiah is known to speak his tongue, without fear of the consequences, which has indeed led to a lot of controversy in the past. A red rag for the Sangh Parivar, Siddaramaiah who entered politics as a Lohiaite and a socialist, does not hide his fetish to appease the minority vote bank. But the other qualities that he brings to the table, makes him the Congress’ major, if not only, trump card in Karnataka.
Why he is unsure of winning his own seat and on a hunt for a safe ticket, despite his value and stature within the party and popularity among the people, is a quixotic situation that can be compared, with some obvious limitations, to the late Arun Jaitley, Modi’s go-to man during his first reign.
Of course, unlike Siddaramaiah, Jaitley quickly moved to national politics and was way ahead in terms of the political influence and clout that he wielded.
While Arun Jaitley was more of a strategist for the BJP, Siddaramaiah is more of a mass leader. But like Jaitley, Siddaramaiah too has a carefully cultivated personality, with the ability to win you over with his charm offensive. And like Jaitley, he too is heard respectfully even by his diehard opponents.
Both rose to the very top in their party. While Jaitley had Modi’s ear and was the BJP high command in a sense, Siddaramaiah too has a good equation with the Congress high command. More importantly, both made themselves virtually indispensable to the party.
Further, if Jaitley contested from a safe seat in Amritsar and still lost, Siddaramaiah suffered the ignominy of losing from Chamundeswari, his bastion, though he just about managed to win from Badami, the other seat from where he contested, in the previous elections.
The solution for this paradox of a popular leader in dire need of a safe seat, lies in the hands of his own party.
If Siddu is made the CM candidate, the permutations and combinations can change swiftly and suddenly. It will not only pep up the party’s rank and file, but also add bounce to his own campaign, and give a real and visible chance for the Congress to look like a winner.
Sure, DKS is going to howl and make a noisy song and dance over the party’s betrayal. It may even give more ballast to the groupism and infighting in the party and there may even be a big price to pay at the end of it all. But no victory is possible without calculated risk-taking. And for a party which is a step or two away from near extinction, being risk averse is nothing short of suicidal.
Electoral battles are mostly won or lost on perceptions, and in popular perception, a Congress led by Siddaramaiah can put fear in the minds of the BJP. Undoubtedly, BJP has the benefit of the inevitable X factor in Modi, but let us not forget that even Modi cannot and has not won all elections, even in the party’s own hinterland, like for example, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, and Jharkand, the very states where the BJP has a solid base.
Brand Modi is quite certainly a clear winner for Parliament, but state elections are not just a matter of counting the vote and announcing that the BJP has won.
Unfortunately for the Congress, it has gone too far away to now take a step back to move forward and return to Siddaramaiah and fight the elections under his leadership.
DKS at the helm may not win anything of substance outside of Kanakapura, but the Congress has put itself in a situation where it cannot ditch him, even if he is more likely to lose the State for the party. In that sense, DKS is truly the Congress’ albatross.
That’s the reason why the BJP targets Siddaramaiah more than anyone else in the Congress. It knows that he is the danger man, the one noteworthy opponent who can thwart the BJP’s ruthless and resource-rich election machine.
All that Siddu needs is for his party to give him the crown — even if it be of thorns. And all that the Congress can do is anything but that, for such is the hold DKS has over it, and such is also its own need of him.
This is the biggest irony which more likely will eventually see the Congress yet again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Karnataka.
If indeed that were to happen, it would be tempting to compare Karnataka to Punjab, but there would still remain a big defining difference.
For while the Congress lacked a popular face in Punjab, in Karnataka, it will stoop to a new low, by showing how to lose from a winning position even when you have a popular and charismatic face, warts and all.