Special Intensive Revision to Siddaramaiah-Shivakumar feud: Major political controversies of 2025

Senior Congress leaders Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar at the residence of party leader KC Venugopal for a meeting, in New Delhi.

In many ways political events and occurings of 2025 are believed to have far-reaching impact for not only India's entrenched democratic structure but also the larger polity. As often seen in politics, specific acts or legislations brought in by the party in power have sustained reverberations with the Opposition. 2025 will not be an exception in that regard.

Although a span of 12 months may not be adequate to arrive at a genuine reading of the likely consequences of the occurings, it gives a broad metric to gauge the possible ramifications of such events.

1) Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls: This single exercise, conducted by the Election Commission -- first in Bihar and then in many of the poll-bound states (states going to polls in 2026, 2027), generated enough political heat. From academicians to political analysts, let alone the members of the Opposition, left no stone unturned to analyse the issue threadbare. Although the Election Commission and the government had a strong rationale behind conducting such an exercise, the Opposition was relentless in terming the exercise "anti-opposition" with a concerted attempt to subvert the democratic fabric of India.

Why the political uproar? The SIR has been under attack from the Opposition INDIA bloc which has alleged that it was designed to "benefit the ruling NDA", and that the poll panel which had allegedly helped the BJP-led coalition in Maharashtra by "adding fake voters", is now "wrongfully trying to delete" the names of many such people in states in which the electorate were unlikely to vote for the ruling dispensation.

The controversy wasn’t confined to campaign rhetoric in Bihar. The SIR exercise required multiple Supreme Court interventions, including orders to publish reasons for the deletion of names from the draft electoral roll and permission for electors to use Aadhaar as the 12th identity document for enrolment. Approximately 68 lakh electors were deleted from Bihar’s electoral rolls, while 24 lakh were added, resulting in a net deletion of around 44 lakh voters between January 2025 and October 2025.

2) Operation Sindoor: The government and the opposition crossed swords umpteen times during a discussion on Operation Sindoor during the Monsoon session of Parliament. Although there was near unanimity in praising India’s armed forces, there was little common ground beyond that. Operation Sindoor was India’s military response to the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22, 2025, which claimed 26 lives. The elimination of three terrorists behind the attack, just before the parliamentary debate, helped the government’s case. Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, repeatedly claimed that India maintained silence over the loss of assets during Operation Sindoor, calling it a 'crime' to have informed Pakistan beforehand.

Shashi Tharoor - at a crossroads in his relationship with the Congress - had refused to toe the party line during the Parliament debate on the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor. Tharoor said he would not contradict himself "for the sake of party messaging". Tharoor and the Congress have been at odds since he led a government delegation to the United States - on Pahalgam and India's anti-terror doctrine - and praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

3) Siddaramaiah-DKS feud in Karnataka:The fight for the chief minister's chair between Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM DK Shivakumar had moved from backstage to full public view. This was one recurring bout within the state Karnataka Congress throughout the year. The Siddaramaiah-DKS feud broke after the Congress' 2023 election win; the party opted for the former as its new chief minister, a role the latter felt he deserved after orchestrating the victory. Instead, he was made the deputy and allowed to remain as the party's state unit boss; the Congress' 'one man, one post' rule was bent to allow this. There was also talk then of an 'agreement' -- another not-so-cryptic DKS remark was about a "secret deal between five or six of us" -- that would see Siddaramaiah stand down midway through the five-year term.

4) Did Vijay do enough after Karur stampede? With the Madras High Court describing the Karur tragedy as a “huge man-made disaster,” analysts and the electorate ponder upon a pertinent question. Could Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) have averted the tragedy with better crowd management? In a state where political symbolism serves as an invaluable political capital, one wonders if Vijay can rise from the shadow of the tragedy and stage a comeback in next year's assembly polls. The 2026 Tamil Nadu election will be the all-crucial electoral debut for actor Vijay’s TVK, who has boldly declared the contest as a "TVK versus DMK" fight and positioned himself as the alternative to MK Stalin. Vijay has a massive youth following and has a potential surprise factor to disrupt the traditional bipolar contest. However, the tragic Karur stampede that claimed 41 lives during one of his pre-poll roadshows casts a significant negative shadow. The incident has been heavily leveraged by the opposition, forcing Vijay and the TVK to defend their competence and win public trust.