The Burden Of Victory

New CM Siddaramaiah will not have it easy with his main rival in the co-driver's seat. Then there's the huge task of executing the party's '5 guarantees'

- AJAY SUKUMARAN

In crunch-time, the twin poles of the Congress in Karnataka, and D.K. (DKS), buried the hatchet and I Siddaramaiah Shivakumar kept their eyes firmly on the mutual goal-winning the state for the party. Three days before Karnataka went to the polls on May 10, Congress election managers even hit upon an imaginative coup de grace in optics. They put out a video of the two stalwarts engaged in a relaxed, freewheeling conversation in the manner of old compatriots, exchanging notes and firming up plans for the future. But in victory, the rivalry between Siddaramaiah, the mass leader, and DKS, the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president, was evident to all.

Both had a strong claim to the top seat. If Siddaramaiah, 75, was the able administrator who was chief minister for a full five-year term between 2013 and 2018; DKS, 61, was the astute organiser under whose leadership the Karnataka Congress has now delivered its best election result since 1989. If one laid claim to a social blend of backward classes, minorities and Dalits, the other represented the powerful Vokkaliga community whose backing won the southern Karnataka region for the party. While Siddaramaiah had the support of a majority of Congress MLAs, DKS's calling card was his unflinching loyalty to the party. The decision, eventually left to the party high command, this time comprising another Karnataka veteran-AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge-saw four days of hard negotiations playing out in Delhi before a truce was hammered out.