Siddaramaiah stepped down as the chief minister of Karnataka on May 28, and his number 2, DK Shivakumar stepped into his shoes after doing a ‘window shopping’ in Delhi - the power centre - for more than a year now. The ‘deal’ is done and the Congress high command has shown, once again, that no chief minister in a party-ruled state holds the chair by right. Kerala would surely be paying attention.

VD Satheesan has been Chief Minister of Kerala for exactly ten days. He has a full mandate, a carefully assembled cabinet, and the momentum of a election victory that ended a decade of Left rule. He also has, as of Thursday, a very instructive example sitting right next door.

In Bengaluru, Siddaramaiah hosted a farewell breakfast for his cabinet ministers on Thursday morning before heading to submit his resignation to the Governor. By afternoon, celebrations had already broken out at DK Shivakumar’s residence, with supporters bursting crackers and loyalist MLAs openly declaring what the high command had spent weeks pretending was still under consideration. The Karnataka succession, two years in the making and twelve months overdue, was finally done.

For Satheesan, the lesson is not that his position is under threat. It is that no Congress chief minister’s position is ever entirely above the mathematics of accommodation — and that the high command, when it moves, moves fast and with compensation already arranged.

The Parallel That Congress Kerala Will Deny

The structural similarities between Karnataka and Kerala are uncomfortable enough that nobody in the Congress will acknowledge them publicly. In Karnataka, a dominant incumbent who believed he had earned a full term was eased out through a combination of high command pressure, a Rajya Sabha carrot, and the quiet arithmetic of a rival’s waiting MLAs. In Kerala, a fiercely contested three-way race — Satheesan, Ramesh Chennithala, Venugopal — was resolved by the same high command less than a fortnight ago, with Chennithala walking into the Home Ministry and Venugopal returning to Delhi carrying, by most accounts, unfinished business.

The defeated have been accommodated. The question the Karnataka episode raises is whether accommodation is a permanent settlement or a managed pause.

In Karnataka, it was clearly the latter. Shivakumar waited. He stayed publicly loyal. He built his network, kept his MLAs warm, and let time do the work that confrontation could not. The high command, when it was ready, validated exactly that patience. For Chennithala’s camp and for those quietly invested in Venugopal’s long game, the Karnataka model is not just a political event happening in another state. It is a proof of concept.

Why Satheesan Is Not Siddaramaiah

The comparison has limits, and they matter.

Source: India Latest News, Breaking News Today, Top News Headlines | Times Now