Shivakumar: Why DK Shivakumar may be wary of sharing Karnataka CM’s post with Siddaramaiah | Karnataka Election News

NEW DELHI: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar, who is one of the two strongest contenders for the chief minister’s (CM) post of the state, has bluntly declined to share it with his party colleague Siddaramaiah. Shivakumar may have rejected the idea outright because of the unsuccessful experiments in sharing the CM’s post in different states in the past.
A series of negotiations are taking place between the Congress high command, including party president Mallikarjun Kharge and former chief Rahul Gandhi, and Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah ever since the results of the Karnataka assembly election were announced on May 13.
A three-member panel of observers first met in Bengaluru all the 135 MLAs of the Congress to elicit their choice for the CM’s post. Subsequently, the scene of activities shifted to Delhi where several rounds of meetings have taken place between the leaders.
When asked in an interview to TOI on May 15 whether he would agree to share the CM’s post with Siddaramaiah, 75, Shivakumar said, “It is not property to be shared like siblings share ancestral property. It is a question of forming the government. There can’t be sharing.”
With Shivakumar, 61, rejecting this probability, one of the options before the Congress high command closed down.
Sharing of the CM’s chair has been attempted in at least three instances in Indian political history. While once it involved an intra-party formula in the Congress itself, the other two pertained to the BJP versus Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and BJP versus HD Kumaraswamy-led Janata Dal (Secular) [JD(S)].
Unfortunately, the experiment has never succeeded. Perhaps this might have led Shivakumar to reject the idea of sharing the CM’s chair.
Chhattisgarh
An intense power struggle took place in the Congress between Bhupesh Baghel and Tribhuvaneshwar Saran Singh Deo (or TS Singh Deo) for the CM’s post after the party won 68 seats in the 90-member Chhattisgarh assembly in the 2018 election.
In a compromise formula, the party high command decided on a sharing of the CM’s post between Baghel, 62, and Singh Deo, 70, for two-and-a-half years each. While Baghel was sworn in as CM for the first half of the five-year tenure, Singh Deo got health and panchayat and rural development among three other ministries as his portfolios.
Singh Deo started raising the issue of change of guard from June 2021, the midway of the tenure. However, Baghel bought time by saying that party leader Rahul Gandhi would visit the state and decide for himself the work which has been done by his government.
With the party high command also having put the issue on the backburner, Singh Deo stirred a controversy by resigning his panchayat and rural development portfolio.
Despite this, the Congress high command did not replace Baghel with Singh Deo and is unlikely to do so as election is due later this year.
Karnataka
Another experiment involved Karnataka itself which is at the epicentre of the latest power tussle.
The 2004 Karnataka assembly election gave a fractured mandate. The BJP emerged as the single largest party by winning 79 out of 224 seats and garnering 28.33% votes.
The Congress won 65 seats and fetched 35.27% votes, 6.94% more than the BJP. The JD(S) won 58 seats and got 20.77% votes.
The Congress and JD(S) forged a post-poll alliance and formed the government with Dharam Singh of the former as the CM.
However, the JD(S) withdrew support to the government and entered into an alliance with the BJP in February 2006. The two parties reached an agreement to share the CM’s post for 20 months each.
Under the arrangement, Kumaraswamy became the CM of Karnataka on February 4, 2006for 20 months.
However, he refused to honour the agreement with the BJP. He did not vacate the chair for BJP on October 3, 2007. Subsequently, he tendered his resignation to governor Rameshwar Thakur on October 8, 2007, necessitating the imposition of President’s Rule two days later.
The JD(S) came around a few days later and decided to support the BJP’s BS Yediyurappa as the CM. Following JD(S)’s assurance, Yediyurappa took oath as CM on November 12, 2007.
But JD(S) withdrew support to the Yediyurappa government a week later over disagreement on portfolio distribution. The state plunged into a long spell of President’s Rule thereafter.
Another experiment on power-sharing failed.
Uttar Pradesh
The BSP and the Congress had contested the 1996 UP assembly election as pre-poll alliance partners. The election threw up a hung assembly with the BJP claiming the first spot by winning 174 of the total 424 seats (Uttarakhand was a part of UP then).
Samajwadi Party (SP) won 110 seats. While the BSP won 67 seats, the Congress bagged 33 seats.
With no party or combination in a position to form a majority government, President’s Rule was imposed in the state for a few months.
In March 1997, the BJP and BSP agreed to join hands to form government for the second time. Earlier, they had governed the most populous state of the country together from June 1995 to October 1995. But that experiment had failed.
The BJP and BSP agreed to share power on rotation basis for a period of six months each. With its previous bitter experience with the BSP, the BJP insisted on a written agreement. Subsequently, Mayawati was sworn in as the UP CM on March 21, 1997.
Six months later on September 21, 1997, Mayawati transferred power to the BJP for the next six months.
Kalyan Singh of the BJP took over as CM on September 21, 1997. However, within a month of handing over the government’s reins to Kalyan Singh, she withdrew support to the BJP on October 20.
As a result, perhaps the first experiment with power-sharing failed. The subsequent ones also met the same fate. This is possibly the reason why Shivakumar refused to share power with his bete noire Siddaramaiah on a rotational door basis.