New Delhi, May 18: In the tough balancing act for the Congress to pick Siddaramaiah over DK Shivakumar as Karnataka Chief Minister, there were heavier scales that point to the party’s provincial and future national strategy. Shivakumar is to be Deputy CM while still continuing as state Congress chief

After a busy night of parleys, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and the two trouble shooters, Randeep Singh Surjewala and KC Venugopal, finally managed to convince Shivakumar to accept the lessor role. Venugopal later extolled the respective virtues of the two aspirants.

“Siddaramaiah, you know, is an experienced senior most politician and able administrator. He has contributed a lot for this election, for the party. Tirelessly, he worked for the party through out of the state. The same way our PCC President, DK Shivakumar, one of the dynamic party organiser in the State. He electrified the cadre of the State. Wherever little gap was there, he reached there and filled the gap. It was a very good combination Shivakumar as PCC President and Siddaramaiah as a CLP leader; both are big assets of the Congress Party in Karnataka,” he said.

No prospect of a rotational CM

But, Venugopal underlined, while “everybody has their own wish, their own desire to become a CM”, there can be only one CM. “Siddaramaiah will be the CM of Karnataka. DK Shivakumar will be the only one Deputy CM,” said Venugopal. There is, he stressed, no prospect of a rotational CM. “The only power sharing is with the people of Karnataka,” he said.

The reason for the Congress to hold on to Shivakumar as president of the party’s state unit is, as Venugopal underlined, his ability to “electrify” the party cadre. But in a CM, what the Congress needs is the stature, political morality and the ideological strength that Siddaramaiah with his Left/atheist leanings represents in contrast to the heightened Hindutva narrative of the BJP. His clean image was another reason compared to the corruption charges that Shivakumar is battling.

At the national level, the Congress is planning to counter BJP’s religious nationalism with a recalibrated caste arithmetic that is already being dubbed as Mandal 2.0. This strategy includes a nationwide demand for a caste census with the slogan “Jitni abadi utna haq” and removing the 50 per cent cap on reservation. It suits the principal opposition party to have the CM of the biggest State it governs with Siddaramaiah’s impeccable social justice credentials.

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