The Importance of Being DK Shivakumar in Rahul Calculus

It seems the Congress has a credible trouble-shooter at last. A trouble-shooter who has negotiated the complexities of Opposition politics, which it badly needs, especially after it couldn’t get its Rajya Sabha nominee in Jharkhand through.

- Ravi Shankar

Last week, a masterclass in the difference between rhetoric and reality happened in Karnataka: the Congress won all five Legislative Council seats it contested—plus an additional seat by persuading cross voting by the BJP. It was the kind of outcome old Congress managers once considered routine, but which the Rahul Congress has no idea, or interest, on how to achieve. The architect of the win is DK Shivakumar; probably the reason Uddhav Thackeray—whose party rapidly imploded after six MPs crossed over to the Shinde-BJP camp—invited him to Mumbai to confabulate. Whether DKS, with all his political management skill, can pull off a miracle in Maharashtra to save an INDIA ally is questionable. It was left to him to soothe MK Stalin, whom Rahul treated churlishly in public during the Tamil Nadu elections and dumped unceremoniously.