Will Siddaramaiah Live Up To Ruling Party's Faith!

The ruling party retains faith in Siddaramaiah for the 2018 polls. Can he live up to it?

- Aravind Gowda

A familiar grouse against the Congress high command (read Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul) is that it is reluctant to name a chief ministerial candidate in a poll-bound state, even if such a decision were to its benefit. But after being reduced to a rump of a party, they seem to have learnt the lesson.

So with nine months to go for the Karnataka assembly elections in early 2018, the all-powerful All India Congress Committee announced that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah would lead the election campaign, ensuring that there was no ambiguity on that score. This was a recognition of the fact that he had performed sufficiently well as CM and remained the party’s best bet to retain power in this crucial state.

Keeping in mind the caste equations, the AICC also decided that Dr G. Parameswara, a Dalit leader, would remain state Congress president but would resign from his ministerial post and concentrate on the election campaign. Then, in a move to keep the two dominant caste groupings in the state, the Lingayats and the Vokkaligas, happy, S.R. Patil was appointed working president and D.K. Shivakumar chairman of the campaign committee. To woo the forward communities, including Brahmins, Dinesh Gundu Rao, son of late chief minister Gundu Rao, was also appointed working president. By ensuring that all the top leaders were given a major role in the campaign, the party hopes to stem infighting and keep the flock united.