BENGALURU: The power game over chief minister’s post, seemingly, has started in the state as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, also KPCC president, have begun taking positions.
Close on the heels of Shivakumar meeting the AICC general secretary (organisation), KC Venugopal, and Karnataka in-charge, Randeep Singh Surjewala, on Tuesday late night Siddaramaiah, here on Thursday, met Congress Working Committee permanent invitee and MLC, BK Hariprasad.
He sent out a message that he is set out to garner the support of the AHINDA leaders for continuing in the post.
Hariprasad, an aide of Sonia Gandhi, was known for avenging Siddaramaiah as the latter did not consider the former for a cabinet berth when Congress came to power in 2023.
But some time back, they patched up and on Thursday held a one-on-one talk. It is learnt that they discussed three key issues.
They include not to let any dominant community member, including DK Shivakumar, acquire the CM post in the present tenure of the government. They want to focus on communally sensitive coastal Karnataka which has a sizable population of ‘billava’ community from which Hariprasad hails from. There is also a possibility of inducting Hariprasad into the cabinet, sources told TNIE.
“Rahul Gandhi knew that Congress came to power because of the backing of AHINDA communities and, hence, does not want to remove the champion of these communities, Siddaramaiah, from the top post”, is the bottom line of the meeting between Siddaramaiah and Hariprasad,” sources said.
If the high command gives its nod for a reshuffle, Hariprasad is likely to get a berth in the Siddaramaiah cabinet, said sources.
Siddaramaiah has also offered a post of chairman of a prominent board and corporation to Hariprasad but the latter is unlikely to take it up. There is also the political future of Hariprasad’s nephew, Rakshit, son of former police officer BK Shivaram. It is learnt that the CM and Hariprasad discussed nurturing Rakshit as the ‘billava’ community leader in the coastal region. Rakshit had unsuccessfully contested from Belthangady in the 2023 assembly polls.
“It was a pre-scheduled meeting over breakfast. I asked Hariprasad to visit the communally sensitive Mangaluru. Along with general issues, we discussed the need for harmony in Mangaluru,” Siddaramaiah told reporters after the meeting.
Interestingly, Siddaramaiah, apart from his loyalists who had switched to the Congress along with him, has managed to take his one-time adversaries, including the original Congress top leaders, into his good books, who were now avenging Shivakumar, according to political analysts.
Siddaramaiah, who will be completing his two-and-a-half year term as CM in October 2025, has to step down if it’s to be believed that a deal was struck at the high command level on which Shivakumar is harping on.
“It is to be seen in the game of power that a consensus candidate strikes a deal and clinches the top post,” said a Congress leader.
But Siddaramaiah is unlikely to step down until he completes seven years and seven months and breaks a record, in January 2026, of the late D Devaraj Urs, who was the longest-serving CM of Karnataka, according to sources.
Meanwhile, Hariprasad, in a post on ‘X’ wrote,”Siddaramaiah visited my residence today in a gesture of solidarity. We discussed in depth the rising communal tensions in Mangaluru and coastal Karnataka, and the urgent need to safeguard peace, harmony, and constitutional values. Any speculation of a political agenda behind this meeting is purely presumptive and unfounded.”