The last southern Congress satrap: Siddaramaiah, longest-serving Karnataka CM, decides to bow out

Bengaluru: It is said that Boramma dreamt of Siddarama, her fifth child, becoming king one day. The boy did scale the summit twice in life.

Siddaramaiah, the longest-serving chief minister of Karnataka, has decided to step down, making way for his deputy DK Shivakumar.

Siddaramaiah, 78, finds himself in 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, HD Kumaraswamy and BS Yediyurappa.

While there is little clarity on what the future holds in store, Siddaramaiah’s legacy of being an astute administrator and the Congress’ tallest mass leader in recent times won’t go anywhere for now.

Born at 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.

In his formative years, Siddaramaiah’s worldview on politics, socialism and even anti-Congressism was shaped. 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 warned his son Siddaramaiah not to trust people in politics. 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 12 Assembly elections. He even tried his luck with national politics: he had unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls in 1991 from the Koppal constituency, dominated by the Kuruba community that he belongs to.

Known for being administratively adept, Siddaramaiah holds the record of presenting 17 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 mobilisng 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 few in Congress took on the BJP-RSS ideology like he did.

In all likelihood, Siddaramaiah will not contest the 2028 Assembly polls. Well, he had said that the 2013 polls would be his last. Three years ago, Siddaramaiah announced that his son Dr Yathindra and grandson Dhavan would be his political heirs.