The long-simmering leadership tussle in Karnataka appears to have finally reached its decisive moment. At a breakfast meeting called Thursday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah reportedlyannouncedhe is stepping down - paving the way for Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar to take over the state’s top post.
The biggest political signals came much earlier in the day. Karnataka Home MinisterG Parameshwaratold reporters in Bengaluru that Siddaramaiah had called ministers for a breakfast meeting “before he resigns” and wanted to thank them for their cooperation.
On Thursday, security was beefed up outside DK Shivakumar’s Bengaluru residence as supporters gathered in large numbers, raising slogans and bursting crackers amid growing expectations that the Congress high command had finally cleared the long-awaited leadership transition. Multiple rounds of meetings in Delhi involving Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar and Rahul Gandhi further fuelled rumours that the Congress leadership had moved towards executing a carefully discussed plan of succession.
Further adding to the buzz, at thebreakfast meetingcalled by Siddaramaiah on Thursday morning, Shivakumar hugged his soon-to-be-predecessor before bending down to touch his feet - seen as symbolic of the impending transition.
Pictures from Siddaramaiah's breakfast meeting on Thursday
However, none of this should come as a surprise since the possibility of a mid-term chief ministerial change was effectively built into the Congress arrangement the moment the party swept to power in the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections. Back then, Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar emerged as the two tallest claimants to the chief minister’s chair. Siddaramaiah brought mass appeal, OBC consolidation and administrative experience. Shivakumar, on the other hand, was widely credited for keeping the Congress organisation intact in Karnataka during difficult years and for engineering the party’s comeback.
The rivalry between the two camps was intense enough to threaten instability even before the government was formed. It was at that stage that Rahul Gandhi stepped in with what many in Congress circles came to describe as the “2.5-year rotational CM formula” - although the Grand Old Party never officially announced it.
The math was simple: Siddaramaiah would begin as chief minister while Shivakumar would eventually get his turn midway through the government’s tenure. Now, with the government crossing the halfway mark of its term, the Congress appears to be preparing to honour that understanding.
But the transition is far more complicated than merely changing faces in the chief minister's office. What Rahul Gandhi attempted in Karnataka was not just power-sharing. It was an experiment in managing two competing power centres within a regional unit without allowing factionalism to destroy governance.
That experiment is now entering its most difficult phase.
Source: India Latest News, Breaking News Today, Top News Headlines | Times Now
