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Journalism of Courage
If the Congress wins the Karnataka Assembly elections next month, the party leadership will find itself caught between a rock and a hard place as it will have to decide between Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah and state Congress president D K Shivakumar for the Chief Minister’s post.
If the party finds itself in such a situation, it will be a throwback to 2018. At the time, the grand old party faced a hard time deciding the Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh and the effect of the decisions it took lingers on to this day.
Senior leader Sachin Pilot’s fresh offensive against Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Chhattisgarh Health Minister T S Singh Deo’s “I am on the sidelines” jibe on Sunday are powerful reminders to the Congress leadership about the unfinished business in these two states. In Madhya Pradesh, the party has already suffered the consequences as it split and was unseated from power in 2020 after Jyotiraditya Scindia rebelled and the party chose to throw its weight behind Kamal Nath.
In December 2018, the Congress won the elections in all three states, triggering hectic lobbying by senior leaders for the CM’s post. At the time, Rahul Gandhi tweeted a photo of him flanked by Nath and Scindia, captioning it with Leo Tolstoy’s line: “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
The message to Scindia was clear. That he is the future but will have to display forbearance. But Scindia did not and the balancing act came undone. He walked away from the Congress in March 2020, bringing down the Kamal Nath government and leaving the party red-faced.
But that was not the only photograph that Rahul tweeted that winter. The second photograph showed him with Gehlot and Pilot by his side and it was captioned: “The united colours of Rajasthan.” Since then, that unity has proved to be elusive. The last four years have been tumultuous for Rajasthan Congress. From Pilot’s rebellion in the summer of 2020 to the abortive bid of the leadership to replace Gehlot last September to the latest tussle when Pilot accused Gehlot of sitting on “corruption” cases against the previous Vasundhara Raje-led government, the party has not seen peace in the desert state.
While Scindia was only given hope about a rosy future, sources close to Pilot have been arguing that the leadership — read Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra — gave him the commitment that he would be made the Chief Minister in the last year of the government’s term. That was perhaps the agreement that prompted Pilot to call off his revolt. That he did not manage to secure the support of several MLAs also forced him to smoke the peace pipe.
His latest fusillade against Gehlot has put the Congress high command in a spot of bother especially since it is coming at a time when the leadership is engaged in a bitter tussle with the BJP-led Central government on issues such as the disqualification of Rahul Gandhi as Lok Sabha MP and the Adani affair.
Deo’s jibe also illustrates the unfinished business in Chhattisgarh. Unlike in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, there were more than two contenders in Chhattisgarh as Rahul’s third photograph of December 2018 showed. In that Rahul was flanked by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and Deo on one side and Tamradhwaj Sahu and Charan Das Mahant on the other. All four were CM aspirants. The photo was captioned with American venture capitalist Reid Hoffman’s quote, “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.”
According to party insiders, Baghel and Deo joined hands to edge out the other two, proposing a rotational chief ministership formula to Rahul. Baghel took the first turn, and Deo and Sahu — the latter with the crucial Home portfolio — were appointed Cabinet ministers. Mahant was appointed Assembly Speaker. But Baghel flatly denies the existence of any such unwritten formula.
In Karnataka, Siddaramaiah has already openly declared that he is an aspirant. In a television interview, he said Shivakumar — known popularly by his initials DK — too was an aspirant. Then there are others — the likes of campaign committee chief and Lingayat leader M B Patil and former Deputy Chief Minister and Dalit face G Parameshwara — who hope to emerge as a compromise choice in the Siddaramaiah-DK face-off.
As campaigning begins for the Karnataka Assembly elections, the Congress leadership is mindful of the complications that lie in store for it in the event of a victory but can do little to clear the air before the elections.
