He is the new Congress mascot. The face of the party in Karnataka after a landslide Assembly election victory earlier this year, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is now firmly in the saddle after ensuring his party’s resounding success in the just-concluded bypolls, bagging four of five seats on offer.
With two Lok Sabha and two Legislative Council seats in his kitty, Siddaramaiah is the man the Congress high command is banking on to steer the party to bag valuable seats during the 2014 General Elections.
But the story could have been very different. A defeat would have had Siddaramaiah’s detractors within the Congress baying for his blood, itching as they have been to lead an attack on him by raking up the ‘original Congress’ and the ‘Janata Parivar Congress’ issue.
Several Congress leaders feel that Siddaramaiah, a former associate of JD (S) national president H D Deve Gowda, gives more importance to Janata Parivar leaders who are now in Congress over old time Congress leaders. The bypoll success story, has, however, silenced those hoping to pull the carpet from under the CM’s feet.
Perhaps perceiving the threat to his leadership, Siddaramaiah pulled out all stops to win. He took support from Samajwadi Party and Karnataka Sarvodaya Party for the Lok Sabha bypolls besides deputing ministers and MLAs to each of the Assembly segments within the Lok Sabha constituencies.
“People have rejected the unholy alliance and voted for development,’’ an elated Siddaramaiah said.
The Lok Sabha bypoll results also consolidated the Ahinda vote bank comprising minorities, backward classes and dalits. Ahinda is a non-political movement started in the early 1990s in Karnataka to consolidate the electorate against powerful upper caste Lingayats and Vokkaligas. Siddaramaiah is perceived as a the face of Ahinda.
Now, there are efforts to catapult him into national politics by projecting him as a backward class leader. Felicitations have been held in Hyderabad, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
Siddaramaiah, whose political roots lie in the social movement, was a bitter Congress critic until he joined the party in 2006. Like former Deputy CM M P Prakash and Congress Lok Sabha member Jayaprakash Hegde, his honest and clean image was his main draw.
Not the one to mince words, Siddaramaiah at a recent seminar on criminalization of politics stunned all by admitting that many like him had had to compromise to survive in politics. “We accept money to contest elections without knowing if it is ill-gotten. We have compromised at least to this extent,” he said to thunderous applause.