Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah speaks as his deputy D.K. Shivakumar looks on during the Assembly session in Bengaluru on July 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI
After a month of intense speculation that there could be a change of leadership in Karnataka, the Congress high command seems to have put a stop to it, at least for the time being. The conjecture was fuelled by party legislators from the camps of both Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister and party chief D.K. Shivakumar. It reached a tipping point when a seer asked Mr. Siddaramaiah to vacate the seat in favour of his deputy, at a State government event.
An examination of the last three and a half decades of Karnataka politics shows that speculation over leadership change and even changes within short spans are not new. The ninth Assembly elected in 1989 saw three Chief Ministers during one tenure for the first time in the State. Since then, there have been 18 Chief Ministers in Karnataka. These include short tenures for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s B.S. Yediyurappa (four times) and the Janata Dal (Secular)’s H.D. Kumaraswamy (twice). Over this period of 35 years, President’s Rule was imposed thrice in the State. The average tenure of a Chief Minister during this period was less than two years. Three coalition governments with the JD(S) were pulled down. The BJP came to power twice (in 2008 and 2019) lacking a simple majority and eventually cobbling together a majority through engineered defections, in an exercise called Operation Kamala. During 2008-2013, there were three Chief Ministers and during 2019-2013, there were two. The exceptions to this rule were the S.M. Krishna (1999-2004) and Siddaramaiah (2013-2018)-led Congress governments.
This means that the the State’s political circles have generally been abuzz with rumours about leadership change. In such scenarios, Chief Ministers have always been putting out political fires and, in some cases, skewing policy to placate dissenting MLAs by earmarking more funds to certain constituencies and districts. The top agenda in such situations has always been to manage the party high command, factionalism within the party, and defectors or alliance partners in case of a coalition government. All this naturally leaves the administration with little time and energy to focus on policy and governance.
H.D. Kumaraswamy and Mr. Yediyurappa came to power in 2006 in a coalition government with an arrangement that each of them will be Chief Minister for 20 months. Mr. Kumaraswamy was sworn in first. Senior bureaucrats recall that the decision of the coalition created multiple power centres and leaders within the government, and chaos in the administration.
Mr. Yediyurappa, who came to power in 2019 after toppling the JD(S)-Congress coalition government by engineering defections, resigned on July 26, 2022. He announced his decision to step down at an event to commemorate two years of his government. Mr. Yediyurappa was dogged by speculation of leadership change through his two-year tenure. During that time, a top bureaucrat had told The Hindu that constant talk of change of guard can undermine the full authority of the chief ministerial position.
In a similar vein, former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, who had a short tenure of less than a year in 2012-13, recently advised the Congress to desist from speculating about the issue in public. “It is the party’s internal matter regarding whether or not they want to change the Chief Minister. But discussing it day in and day out in public will have an adverse effect on the administration,” he said. Union Minister Pralhad Joshi also rued that these discussions had “brought the administration to a standstill”. He asked, “If members of the government themselves are discussing leadership change every day, why will the bureaucracy and administration be serious about this government?”
With the Congress winning 135 seats in a 224-seat Assembly in 2023, the present dispensation was expected to be a “stable government”. However, the Opposition has been repeatedly saying that the government “could fall any day”. The supporters of the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister have been trying to undermine each other, with one faction arguing for leadership change and the other denying it. Even if there is an arrangement on power-sharing between Mr. Siddaramaiah and Mr. Shivakumar, it is not in the public domain. However, constant talk on the issue has given the people of the State a sense of déjà vu, despite the present government’s stability in terms of numbers.
