Siddaramaiah, the Congress’s southern satrap

Siddaramaiah's political career began in 1978 when he contested a taluk board election

It is said that Boramma dreamt that her boy Siddarama would become king one day. Luckily for her, he scaled the summit twice in life.

Siddaramaiah is all set to become Karnataka’s new chief minister, which will be his second term for which he worked ever since Congress lost the 2018 election under his stewardship.

The chief minister’s chair did not come easy for Siddaramaiah, 75, who had to face stiff resistance from a formidable, equally-deserving contender—Karnataka Congress president D K Shivakumar.

Siddaramaiah joins an elite club of politicians who have occupied the chief minister’s chair more than once - S Nijalingappa, Veerendra Patil, D Devaraj Urs, Ramakrishna Hegde, H D Kumaraswamy, and B S Yediyurappa.

Born at his native Siddaramanahundi on the outskirts of Mysuru in August 1947, Siddaramaiah tended to cattle with his father in the hinterland before starting school directly from Class 4. He went on to acquire a degree in law, because he simply did not score enough marks in Class 12 (pre-university) to study medicine.

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In his formative years, Siddaramaiah’s worldview on politics, socialism and even anti-Congressism took shape. He kept a beard like all Lohia-ites of the time and became a rationalist, almost atheist.

His political career began in 1978 when he contested a taluk board election, which required quite a bit of convincing his father. His father Siddarame Gowda had lost a gram panchayat election and was averse to politics. He had warned his son Siddaramaiah not to trust people in politics. However, Siddaramaiah won the taluk board election.

In the 1978 Assembly election, Siddaramaiah contested for the Chamundeshwari segment from Charan Singh’s Lok Dal and lost.

Siddaramaiah contested again in 1983 as an Independent and won. He was appointed as the first president of the Kannada Kavalu Samiti, a watchdog body for the local language.

In a long career in electoral politics, Siddaramaiah has won nine out of 14 Assembly elections. This includes the one time he unsuccessfully contested a Lok Sabha election in 1991 from the Koppal constituency, which is dominated by the Kuruba community that he belongs to.

Known for being administratively adept, Siddaramaiah holds the record of presenting 13 budgets as the state’s finance minister.

Having joined the Janata Party and later Janata Dal, Siddaramaiah’s relationship with JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda is the stuff of legend. Gowda was once his mentor before becoming a bitter rival.

After the split of the Janata Dal in 1999, Siddaramaiah and Gowda built the JD(S) which won 58 seats in the 2004 polls. Gowda, who did not succeed in making Siddaramaiah the CM in 1996, was seen as denying the opportunity to him in 2004 to favour his son H D Kumaraswamy.

In 2006, Siddaramaiah was expelled from the JD(S) after he started mobilising the Ahinda - the Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits.

Rustic and sharp-tongued, Siddaramaiah’s detractors accuse him of being a rank casteist. But everyone agrees that he is among the few who can take on the might of the BJP-RSS ideology.

This will be Siddaramaiah’s last political innings. Well, he had said that the 2013 polls would be his last. Recently, he introduced his grandson Dhavan as his political heir.

Political road:

1978: Contested first Assembly poll as Bharatiya Lok Dal candidate and lost
1983: Won as an Independent from Chamundeswari
1985: Won as Janata Party candidate and became minister for sericulture, transport and animal husbandry.
1989: Lost to M Rajasekara Murthy of Congress
1991: Lost to Basavaraj Patil Anvari of Congress in Lok Sabha poll 1994: Became finance minister
1996: Deputy chief minister under J H Patel
1999: Lost to Congress’ A Guruswamy
2004: Won from JD(S) and became DCM again
2006: Joins Congress and wins by 257 votes
2008: Won from Varuna
2013: Won from Varuna and became CM
2018: Won from Badami, lost in Chamundeshwari
2023: Won from Varuna and became CM