For a man rooted in ‘Janata Parivar’ for two-and-half-decades and once known for strident anti-Congress stance, it has been a remarkable turn-around for Siddaramaiah, who is now all set to be sworn in as Karnataka’s Chief Minister for the second time, after consolidating his position in the grand old party. From early 1980s to 2005, Siddaramaiah, who comes from a poor farmer’s family, was a die-hard anti-Congressman, but his ouster from JD(S) of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, brought him to political cross-roads, and made him join the very party he had opposed.
For his patience and persistence, the seasoned politician known for his bluntness, Siddaramaiah, realised his life-time ambition and went on to become the Chief Minister from the Congress party in 2013.
Those qualities have once again catapulted the nine time MLA, to the same position now, after a gap of five years, as he has been re-elected as the leader of the Congress Legislature Party, to lead the party’s government in the state for the second time.
The 75-year-old Congress leader, who made no secret of his ambition to occupy the post of Chief Minister one last time, will be finally signing off on a “high”, as he has already declared that the recently held Assembly polls to be his last.
Siddaramaiah has the credit of successively edging out Congress’ heavyweights from the race to become the Chief Minister. While it is state Congress President D K Shivakumar now, it was M Mallikarjun Kharge (now the AICC President and the then Union Labour and Employment Minister) in 2013.
After the fractured verdict in 2004, the Congress and JD(S) formed a coalition government, with Siddaramaiah, then in JD(S), being made Deputy Chief Minister with Congress’ N Dharam Singh becoming Chief Minister. Siddaramaiah holds the grudge that he had the opportunity to become Chief Minister, but Gowda scuttled his prospects.
Following this, in 2005, Siddaramaiah, a Kuruba — the third largest caste in Karnataka — chose to position himself as a backward classes leader, by spearheading AHINDA (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits) conventions, coincidentally at a time when Deve Gowda’s son H D Kumaraswamy was seen as a rising star of the party.
Siddaramaiah was sacked from JD(S), where he had earlier served as its state unit chief, with critics of the party insisting that he was removed as Deve Gowda was keen to promote Kumaraswamy as the party’s leader.
Siddaramaiah, an advocate, at the time talked about “political sanyas” and even toyed with the idea of going back to his law practice. He ruled out floating a regional outfit, saying he can’t muster money power. Both the BJP and the Congress wooed him to join them.
But Siddaramaiah said he did not agree with the BJP ideology and joined the Congress with his followers in 2006, a move considered “unthinkable” only a couple of years earlier then.
Rustic in appearance at times, and not known to mince words, Siddaramaiah never hid his ambition to become chief minister and had repeatedly stressed on it unapologetically and unhesitatingly.
