If the triumph of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Legislative Assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra is one thing, on the flip-side it is expected to serve as a blessing to Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, akin to the aftermath of the general elections early this year.
Mr. Siddaramaiah is expected to emerge even stronger in the days to come, much to the chagrin of a section of the State’s Congressmen. A weak Congress high command will obviously translate into the Congress Chief Minister growing stronger, and it is here that the suggestions of the incumbent State Chief Minister will carry more weight at the higher level in the party. In the present political scenario, the Congress is in power in very few States, notably that of Kerala, Karnataka and Assam.
As such, the suggestions of Mr. Siddaramaiah carry more weight with the party high command than that of other Congress leaders of Karnataka, whether it be in the choice of legislators to be inducted in the Council of Ministers or of giving ticket to contest elections. His opposition to setting up a coordination committee to oversee the understanding between the party and the government was, however, not accepted, leading to the appointment of the AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka, Digvijaya Singh, as the head of the coordination committee.
It is in this context that the demand of the president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, G. Parameshwara, to be appointed as Deputy Chief Minister should be viewed. In all likelihood, the Chief Minister, who, it is stated, is against granting Dr. Parameshwara that position, may succeed.
In a few days, Dr. Parameshwara will be completing four years in office as KPCC president. This is a record for any KPCC president, as some on them were removed even before they completed a year in office. Despite having been the KPCC president during the run-up to the Assembly elections, Dr. Parameshwara, however, could not take charge of the government like S.M. Krishna did. The latter led the party to victory in the 1999 Legislative Assembly elections and thereafter was an obvious choice as Chief Minister. Contrary to expectations, Dr. Parameshwara was one among the defeated candidates in the Assembly elections.
Krishna’s achievementThe S.M. Krishna government has been the last in recent decades that completed its full term of five years. It was followed by the first of the coalition governments in the State, headed by N. Dharam Singh, and was succeeded by the government of H.D. Kumaraswamy. The last single-party rule (BJP) had three Chief Ministers in B.S. Yeddyurappa, D.V. Sadananda Gowda and Jagadish Shettar.
In contrast to the rout across the country, the Congress in Karnataka did fairly well in the Lok Sabha elections, although the BJP secured a majority of the 28 seats in the State. Thereafter, the Congress has won two of the three byelections for Assembly seats, including wresting the Bellary seat. All these factors add up to the strength of the Chief Minister, whose government has completed around 18 months in office.
