Will Karnataka go Kerala, Punjab way for a faction-ridden Congress? 

The Congress is fancying its chances in Karnataka but a bitter internal feud could ruin its chances of ousting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in next year’s assembly elections in the southern state.

Former chief minister Siddaramaiah and Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar are at loggerheads and don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues. It has now turned into a full-blown tussle on the issue of the party’s chief ministerial candidate.

The camps of the two leaders have upped the ante and want the party high command to announce the face ahead of the assembly elections in March-April next year.

The squabbling could prove fatal for the Congress that otherwise seemed to be on a strong wicket this time with the BJP facing heat over the Police Sub-Inspector (PSI) recruitment scam, price rise, law and order and other allegations of corruption.

The Congress is also hoping that the unceremonious removal of powerful Lingayat leader BS Yediyurappa as the chief minister in July last year might also go in its favour.

The BJP leadership had taken a calculated risk by removing Yediyurappa and appointing Basavaraj Bommai in his place.

Yediyurappa is credited with having strengthened the BJP in Karnataka and his exit is definitely going to impact the saffron party’s performance in the state. Lingayats, who constitute 17% of Karnataka’s 65-million population, have for years supported the BJP because of Yediyurappa. They had moved away from the Congress in 1990 when Rajiv Gandhi removed Veerendra Patil as the chief minister.

In a pre-election move in 2018, then chief minister Siddaramaiah’s move to accord minority religious status to Lingayats backfired and failed to bring any electoral dividend for the Congress. The decision was seen as an attempt to divide the Hindus.

Though the Congress lost the elections, it struck an alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular) to form a coalition government after the elections.

However, some legislators of both the parties resigned from the assembly soon after the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, reducing the ruling coalition to a minority and enabling the BJP to form the government in Karnataka.

Siddaramaiah was then accused of de-stablising the JD(S)-Congress coalition government. That time, his detractors had claimed that he had deliberately ensured the fall of the HD Kumaraswamy government as he wanted to be the Leader of the Opposition.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi too had blamed vested interests within the party for the fall of the coalition government.

“From its first day, the Cong-JDS alliance in Karnataka was a target for vested interests, both within & outside, who saw the alliance as a threat & an obstacle in their path to power. Their greed won today. Democracy, honesty & the people of Karnataka lost,” he had tweeted.

The Congress high command decided to clip Siddaramaiah’s wings and in March 2020 appointed his arch-rival Shivakumar as the party chief in Karnataka.

The two have been engaged in frequent run-ins since then. The latest trigger was a statement by Congress legislator Zameer Ahmed that Siddaramaiah should be the party’s chief ministerial face.

Shivakumar reprimanded Ahmed by asking to stop worshipping an individual and instead work for bringing the party to power.

Ahmed’s remarks that Muslims are more in number than Vokkaligas had stirred a political controversy with the BJP accusing the Congress of dragging the community in its internal bickering.

Ahmed had made the statement in response to Shivakumar’s appeal to Vokkaligas to support him in his chief ministerial bid this time.

Shivakumar is a Vokkaliga while Siddaramaiah is from the marginalised Kuruba community.

The two upper castes Vokkaligas, who account for 15% of the total population, and Lingayats have dominated the political landscape of Karnataka for decades.

According to last census data, the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) constitute nearly 23%, Kurubas 9%, Dalits 19.5%, scheduled tribes 5% and Muslims 16% while Brahmins and Christians account for 3% each and Jains represent 1%.

Siddaramaiah, who has been the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader for nearly 12 years, is celebrating his 75th birthday on August 3.

On that day, his supporters will organise a show of strength in Davangere. Rahul Gandhi is also likely to attend the Siddaramaiah-75 Amrut Mahotsava.

But his participation is set to open a Pandora’s Box in the Karnataka Congress as there will be similar demands from other senior leaders too.

Supporters of Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge are planning to organise an event to mark the completion of his 50 years as an elected representative and former state minister G Parameshwara is also planning to hold a Dalit convention. Rahul Gandhi will be requested to attend those too.

That said, an upbeat BJP is hoping that this ongoing war in the Congress will help it retain power in the state in the 2023 assembly elections.

And if the Congress doesn't put an end to this internal wrangling now, it will see a repeat of Kerala and Punjab in Karnataka.