Tracking Transition in 2015: Weak Congress, strong CM

A battle that had been brewing between new Congress hands (read former Janata Dal associates of Siddaramaiah) and old Congress hands (read Mallikarjun Kharge, Veerappa Moily, S M Krishna) has subsided.

While there are still murmurs of discontent over the leadership of Siddaramaiah, it is widely believed that there is no real danger to him since the Congress high command cannot risk intra-party turmoil at this stage. The CM is expected to hand out loaves of office — including ministerial positions — to several middle-level party leaders and workers at the beginning of the year to further stymie dissidence.

At the same time, given his more stable position, the Siddaramaiah government will be expected to move away from running a status quoist government to actually creating discernible change in 2015 in terms of agricultural and industrial economy.

While the services sector, will remain the bulwark of the state’s economy, the challenge will be to ensure growth in the industrial and agricultural sectors. Electorally, one of the biggest challenges before the Congress would be local polls in Bangalore city as well as village, taluk and zilla panchayats.