Karnataka Elections: CM aspirants aplenty but will a Dalit or woman ever get to head the state?

With less than a fortnight left for the May 10 Assembly polls in Karnataka, leaders intensify their campaigning across the state to woo voters. (Representative image)

As the assembly elections draw closer in Karnataka, four leaders have begun to count their chickens even before they are hatched, hoping to become the Chief Minister if their respective party comes to power. But despite the grandstanding  on empowerment by all political parties, the state has not had a Dalit or woman Chief Minister to date, and is not likely to see one this time too.

In the Congress, both former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar have openly staked their claim for the top post. However, a few days ago, Shivakumar set the cat among the pigeons when he announced that he was ready to work under All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun M Kharge if he chose to become the Chief Minister.

Kharge: Close Yet Far

Kharge, a Dalit, who began his political career in 1969 as a student union leader, contested his first assembly polls in 1972 from Gurmitkal in Gulbarga district and won ten consecutive elections. When Siddaramaiah joined the Congress from Janata Dal (Secular), the high command which had apparently promised him the Chief Minister’s post if the party came to power, shifted Kharge to the Centre.

In 2009, Kharge contested the Lok Sabha elections and became a Union minister, leaving the coast clear for Siddaramaiah who became the Chief Minister in 2013. While the rest is history, this also put an end to Kharge’s dream of becoming the CM. Now, he has stated that he no longer harbours such desires.

Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar have also publicly said that though they are contenders, the final decision on who should become the CM would be left to the elected MLAs and the high command.

Another senior Dalit leader who had set his eyes on the chair was G Parameshwara, but for some reason, the party seems to have sidelined him though he was appointed the Chairman of the Manifesto Committee.

BJP: High Command Decides

In the BJP, nobody has any illusions about who calls the shots. Though no formal announcement has been made, BJP president JP Nadda had indicated recently that Basavaraj Bommai would continue in office if the party came to power. Bommai himself had announced at a function that he would return as Chief Minister. But in politics, nothing is certain.

When BS Yediyurappa was asked to quit in 2021, it was heavily speculated that Arvind Bellad, a Lingayat MLA from Hubli Dharwad West would step into his shoes, but nothing came out of it. Similarly, the name of union minister Shobha Karandlaje also did the rounds.

JD(S) supremo HD Kumaraswamy had recently courted controversy when he claimed that a coterie headed by BJP national secretary BL Santosh was planning to replace Bommai with Union minister Pralhad Joshi, a Brahmin. Joshi has subsequently clarified that he is not in the race.

If there are any other frontrunners in the BJP, nobody seems to have the courage to openly express their views as any such move would only stymie their chances. The only leader who has publicly and repeatedly  spoken about his chief ministerial ambitions is Basavaraj Patil Yatnal, MLA, from Bijapur. Needless to say, the party may also pick a surprise candidate like it did with Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra in 2014.

Casualty Of Power Politics

There is no such confusion in the JD (S) where Kumaraswamy hopes to win 123 seats in the 224-member assembly and become the Chief Minister.

The entire scenario would change if the elections throw up a hung assembly in which case the JD(S) will become the kingmaker. Given that the party is not tied to any ideological moorings, it would be difficult to gauge who it would support. The JD(S) had once formed the government with Congress, then with BJP and then again with the Congress.  Kumaraswamy had twice become the CM though JD(S) was the minority partner in the coalition. There is also every chance that if JD(S) decides to support either a Congress or BJP government, it will want to have a say in who would be CM.

And then there is also a new model of government in the event of a hung assembly. The BJP simply poaches MLAs from other parties and forms the government as it did in 2008 and  2019. In fact, the joke doing the rounds in Karnataka is that whoever wins the elections, the BJP will form the government.

But while working out various permutations and combinations, will any party give a thought to social justice? Will a Dalit or a woman ever be given a chance to rule the state? Your guess is as good as mine.

Gautham Machaiah is a senior journalist and political commentator based in Bengaluru. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.