- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
The Indian National Congress, which has struggled for most part since Narendra Modi became the prime minister of India in 2014, staged a major comeback on Saturday (13) when it secured a majority in the assembly election in the southern state of Karnataka, ousting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
But the grand-old party’s problems are far from over despite the results as it now has to choose the chief minister from between two heavyweight leaders — state chief DK Shivakumar and former chief minister Siddaramaiah.
On Monday (15), which also happened to be his 62nd birthday, Shivakumar cancelled his visit to national capital Delhi and sent his “best wishes” to his rival who was already there. According to NDTV, Shivakumar was expected to reach Delhi on Monday evening after the Congress’s central leadership summoned him but he made a sudden turnaround and said he would not.
Is a storm developing?
The veteran leader, who broke down after the Congress secured the win and thanked party leader Sonia Gandhi who had met him in jail following his arrest in a money-laundering case, told the channel that Gandhi had told him that she had confidence that he would deliver Karnataka for the party.
“I am sitting here, doing my regular responsibility. You should have the basic courtesy, a bit of gratitude. They should have the courtesy to acknowledge who is behind the win,” Shivakumar told NDTV in the interview.
He, however, refused to see the move as a rebellion. He told the channel that he would not blackmail as that is not something he does. He said not to perceive anything and that he has his own presence of mind.
“I am not a child. I won’t fall in a trap,” he was quoted as saying.
Shivakumar did not reveal the reason for him skipping Delhi and said it was a “stomach infection”.
Siddaramaiah, who was the chief minister between 2013 and 2018, was already in Delhi on the other hand and was expected to meet Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and other leaders on Monday evening.
Both the leaders were called by the central leadership after observers, deployed by the party to sense the mood among the party legislators, gave their report.
Congress legislators also had a meeting at a hotel in Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka, on Sunday (14) evening where the party tried to understand the pulse.
Earlier on Monday, Shivakumar claimed that he has the “numbers”, meaning the legislators who have to choose their leader at the Legislature Party meeting.
The Congress has won 135 out of 224 seats in the assembly and according to Shivakumar, it was because of him that the party could script such a success.
He also claimed to have rebuilt the party after a coalition government of the Janata Dal (Secular) and Congress collapsed in 2019, a year after they came to power in the 2018 election, after almost 20 legislators quit and joined the BJP.
He also left the final call with Kharge and Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, former president of the Congress.
