The Congress’s tried-and-tested strategy in Karnataka, targeting vote banks of Other Backward Classes (OBC), Scheduled Castes (SC) and Muslims worked exceedingly well this time, as it got additional support from Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities. Now that very additional support base has become a headache for the Congress top leadership, as they must decide on who will be the chief minister, with both former chief minister Siddaramaiah and Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar, belonging to two different OBC castes, not bowing down.
The conundrum after the party secured its biggest state victory after 1989 puts a question mark on its future in the state. The Congress, with 43% of votes and 135 seats, has secured one of the most comprehensive electoral victories in the state, with the party getting second highest number of seats after the 1989 assembly elections. Then party, under Lingayat chief minister Veerendra Patil, had won 178 seats in the 224-member strong assembly.
WHY VOKKALIGAS TO LEAVE THE CONGRESS?
Like the Lingayat community, Vokkaliga, too, is a mutt-dominated community, with religious seers playing a major role in the political decision-making. The community, so far, driven by the guidance of Vokkaliga seers, had largely supported the HD Deve Gowda family, along with his son HD Kumaraswamy, as the Congress had no tall Vokkaliga leader after former chief minister SM Krishna, who was in the office from October 1999 to May 2004.
Shivakumar’s emergence this time made the difference, leading to the community switching its loyalty to the Congress once again. His CM candidature was driven not only by his own political work and ambitions as the Karnataka Congress president, but also by the support of the Vokkaliga seers. They backed him over HD Kumaraswamy and its larger effect was seen in the Vokkaliga community’s voting behaviour.
According to the Lokniti-CSDS post poll survey of Karnataka assembly elections, 49% of the Vokkaliga respondents voted for the Congress, while 24% supported the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The JD(S) could get just 17% of their votes this time. Many in the community preferred to go with the pan-Karnataka Congress this time than JD(S), a much smaller party limited only to the southern Karnataka region.
After the Congress’s emphatic victory, the Vokkaliga seers have come forward to support Shivakumar’s demand for the chief minister’s post. Nirmalanandanatha Swami and Nanjavadhoota Swami, two influential Vokkaliga seers, said that Shivakumar ‘ticks all the boxes’ to become the CM and the Congress should give him an opportunity.
Vokkaliga Sangha, representing the Vokkaliga seers, took a unanimous decision on Sunday to support Shivakumar’s nomination for the post.
Their clear message to Congress high command can be construed as a warning that “DK Shivakumar is the son of the Vokkaliga community”. It can be interpreted as “choose Shivakumar as the chief minister if you want the Vokkaliga votes in the future”. They reminded the Congress top brass that that they supported HD Kumaraswamy when he was the chief minister of the state.
It is likely that the Congress may name Siddaramaiah as the chief minister, finding a middle path, but we should also not forget how this middle path taken by the BJP and BS Yediyurappa was not taken lightly by the Lingayat seers and the community at large.
On July 20, 2021, Lingayat seers from across the state came to meet BS Yediyurappa at his official residence in Bengaluru. Their clear warning was – no to BJP if BS Yediyurappa was replaced. Yediyurappa resigned on July 26, 2021.
The just concluded assembly elections saw a significant chunk of the Lingayat votes shifting to the Congress this time. Karnataka has 67 Lingayat seats. The Congress won 42 of them, 22 more than 2018 assembly election. The BJP’s number came to half, from 40 seats in 2018 to 20 seats this year.
The Congress may make Siddaramaiah the chief minister and DK Shivakumar his deputy, but would that be acceptable to DKS, Vokkaliga seers and the community, only future can tell.
Another way is a power-sharing agreement, half the term to Siddaramaiah and other half to DK Shivakumar, but there are valid doubts if Shivakumar would accept it. The party had seen power struggles in Congress-ruled states of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. In Rajasthan, chief minister Ashok Gehlot and party’s face in the last election and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot have become rivals, with Pilot claiming he was not given his due. Similar is the story in Chhattisgarh between chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and health minister TS Singh Deo. The unwritten power-sharing agreement promised failed to materialise.
The Congress-ruled Madhya Pradesh saw similar political development in 2019-20, between Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia. Scindia left the party with 22 rebel MLAs and Kamal Nath’s government collapsed in March 2020. He later joined the BJP along with other defecting MLAs and is currently a cabinet minister in the Union Government running the Civil Aviation Ministry.
Will a politically alienated DK Shivakumar follow the same path, or will he choose to form a new political outfit?
THE VEERENDRA PATIL REVERBERATION – LINGAYAT VOTES LOST?
The DK Shivakumar episode is a reminder of the Veerendra Patil episode of 1990 when the Congress lost the Lingayat community support.
The Congress had last Lingayat CM in Veerendra Patil in 1990, a tall community leader after S Nijalingappa. After the Congress split in 1969, he joined the Congress (O), the anti-Indira Gandhi faction, and remained the state’s chief minister till March 1971. Later, he joined the Janata Party and fought against Indira Gandhi in 1978 Chikmagalur by-election, which Indira won easily.
Patil re-joined the Congress in 1980. In the 1989 assembly election, he brought Lingayat votes back to the party. The party had not had a single Lingayat chief minister in 18 years and it shifted its electoral support to the Janata Party that won 139 of the 224 seats in the assembly in the 1985 assembly election. Under Patil, the Congress registered its biggest victory in the state so far, winning 178 seats.
Known as an efficient administrator, he had many detractors in the party’s state unit. He fell ill and was struck by paralysis, when communal riots broke in some parts of the state.
His detractors in the party convinced party’s national president and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that Patil was an inefficient administrator of the state and was incapable of controlling the riots. Rajiv Gandhi passed the order of his sacking on October 7, 1990. Patil refused to accept it and said he will remain the chief minister. President’s Rule was imposed in the state on October 10, 1990. Patil was finally replaced by S Bangarappa on October 17, 1990.
The Lingayat community saw this episode as humiliation of then tallest Lingayat community representative and it was reflected in the 1994 assembly elections that saw the Congress’s worst-ever electoral humiliation in the state. From 178 seats in 1989, the party just came down to 34. The vote share saw a massive drop of nearly 17%. The Janata Dal and BJP were big gainers. JD won 115 seats with 33.54% vote share, a big jump from 1989’s 24 seats and 27% vote share. The BJP saw its seats increasing from 4 to 40 and vote share from 4.14% to 16.99%.
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