A Siddaramaiah-D K Shivakumar show: How Congress managed to keep BJP, JD(S) at bay in Karnataka

“Somebody will have to take responsibility for ensuring that cross-voting does not happen. It is a good time for dissatisfied MLAs to profit,” a senior BJP leader said after JD(S) candidate D Kupendra Reddy, a former Rajya Sabha MP, filed his nomination.

In the end, unlike Himachal Pradesh where the BJP successfully exploited divisions in the Congress ranks to pull off an impossible win — six Congress MLAs cross-voted for the BJP — the Congress in Karnataka managed to close ranks behind its candidates Ajay Maken, Syed Nasir Hussain and G C Chandrashekhar to deny an improbable win for the JD(S)-BJP candidate.

A series of measures taken over the last couple of months did the trick for the Congress. From Cabinet-rank appointments for dozens of MLAs in January, with the promise of more appointments, to the corralling of all MLAs in a resort ahead of the February 27 election, and holding mock-voting sessions, all played a part in the party’s success in Karnataka.

While Siddaramaiah played a significant role in keeping MLAs happy in the run-up to the election, Shivakumar — the Deputy CM, state party president, and past master at keeping the Congress MLA flock together for Rajya Sabha polls and other situations — played a major part in the final stretch.

Amid mounting unhappiness among Congress MLAs who missed out on Cabinet berths last year, the CM and the Congress high command approved the appointment of 34 MLAs as chairpersons of boards and corporations on January 26. Earlier in August 2023, soon after the government was formed eight appointments had been made.  An equal number of party workers were also given plum posts in the state administration on the recommendations of MLAs. The Cabinet-rank appointments for MLAs were intended to keep the party flock together in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls and are believed to have played a significant role in the Rajya Sabha poll win as well.

In the days leading to the poll, Shivakumar who is aspiring to be the next CM played a pivotal role in ensuring that Rahul Gandhi’s associate Ajay Maken, Mallikarjun Kharge’s associate Nasir Hussain, and old Congress hand G C Chandrashekhar won the polls. Shivakumar played a key role in corralling all 134 Congress MLAs in a resort a day before the election, training them to vote correctly through mock-voting sessions, and ensuring that four Independent MLAs, including former BJP minister G Janardhan Reddy, supported the Congress candidates.

Among the two most surprising moves that the Congress made that paid dividends was the filing of an FIR by Congress MLA Ravi Ganiga, a close associate of Shivakumar, accusing Kupendra Reddy of offering bribes to Independent legislators Latha Mallikarjun, Puttaswamy Gowda, and Darshan Puttanaiah to vote for him.

The second move was to solicit the support of G Janardhan Reddy, an Independent MLA, despite his almost pariah status on account of the CBI cases of illegal mining that are pending against him. Despite his apparent discomfiture, Siddaramaiah also welcomed Janardhan Reddy’s support for the Congress.

The Deputy CM also played a role in getting two BJP MLAs to the Congress side. S T Somashekhar who was earlier in the Congressvoted for Congress while Shivaram Hebbar, also a former Congress legislator, did not turn up to vote.

In the end, Maken and Nasir Nasir Hussain got 47 votes each and Chandrashekhar got 45 votes. The fourth winner was the BJP’s Narayansa Bhandage who got 47 votes. Kupendra Reddy ended up with only 36 votes.

Although Shivakumar does not enjoy the support of the majority of the MLAs, he is considered a loyal party worker and is keen to impress the Congress high command that is likely to take a call on changing CMs mid-way through the five-year tenure, which will be around the end of 2025. Siddaramaiah is known to enjoy the unequivocal support of nearly 100 of the 135 Congress MLAs, something that prompted the Congress leadership to make him the CM of the state for a second time in May 2023.

With Shivakumar helping the Congress win the RS polls in Karnataka, he was dispatched to Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday to manage a situation where the Congress government headed by CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu slipped into a crisis after losing a Rajya Sabha seat from a winning position on account of six Congress MLAs voting for the BJP. “I do not know why BJP is in such a hurry to conquer two to three states. Any government must also have a strong Opposition. It is not good for democratic values to indulge in such type of horse trading – someday it will boomerang. It is a very bad precedent,” Shivakumar said before leaving for Shimla on Wednesday.