NEW DELHI: A tussle for power between Karnataka’s two key Congress party chieftains ended on Friday with former chief minister Siddaramaiah of the shepherd caste tapped to resume his old job. He will have one deputy chief minister in the form of D.K. Shivakumar, who belongs to Karnataka’s powerful Vokkaliga warrior community and who will also keep his post as party president for the state.

The two will take oath on Saturday (today), The Hindu said. Congress has said that “like-minded parties” will be invited for the swearing-in ceremony, an event that is likely to turn into yet another show of opposition unity.

K.C.Venugopal, Congress general secretary of organisation, and Randeep Surjewala, the party’s in-charge of Karnataka, formally announced the decision to appoint Siddaramaiah as the CM and Shivakumar as the only deputy CM on Friday.

Siddaramaiah, who hails from the shepherd Kuruba caste, holds the record for presenting the highest number of budgets in Karnataka — 13 so far, and is likely to retain the finance portfolio like last time.

He has often spoken about how he was mocked in 1994 before he presented his first budget. “Some people asked, can he count sheep?”, Siddaramaiah told a regional news channel.

It was his ability to keep the flock together and to connect with members of assembly’s big and, especially, small on both sides of the aisle that Siddaramaiah is said to have won the support of the Congress’s new legislators after its decisive victory in the elections.

And so, exactly 40 years after he first entered the Karnataka assembly, the Congress leader is set to become the CM for the second time. He is only the second person in Karnataka’s history to complete a full five-year term.

Siddaramaiah will be the longest serving chief minister, and if he finishes the term at the head of the government, he will be the first person to do so in the state’s history.

Some news outlets reported that there is likely to be a power sharing agreement in place. However, neither Venugopal nor Surjewala confirmed the reports. Amidst speculations that Siddaramaiah will vacate the CM’s post for Shivakumar after a period of two years, Venugopal said that the “only power sharing” arrangement discussed in the high command was on how to “share power with the people”.

Shivakumar, on his part, was the party’s muscular face and is credited with organising the smooth campaign that toppled the BJP ministry despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s overarching presence during communally provocative rallies.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2023