JOIN USSiddaramaiah, Rao face heat, step down
With the BJP sweeping the byelections, the fallout was clear: Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah stepped down as the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader, followed by Dinesh Gundu Rao, who resigned as Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president.
“I respect and accept the decision of the voters in these 15 constituencies. My expectation was that voters, in order to preserve democracy, will punish the disqualified MLAs and teach them a lesson. But that was not to be,” Siddaramaiah said, announcing his resignation.
Rao, seen as a Siddaramaiah loyalist, also resigned owning moral responsibility.
Knives were only beginning to come out against Siddaramaiah and Rao when it became clear that the BJP was winning big in the bypolls. By late afternoon, Siddaramaiah and Rao announced stepping down as if to preempt moves from within the party to seek their ouster.
This is the fourth consecutive election the Congress has lost under Siddaramaiah’s leadership. When he was chief minister, the Congress won nine seats against the BJP’s 17 in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Under his watch, the Congress lost the 2018 Assembly polls. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress was reduced to just one seat and now, the party won just two seats in the bypolls.
“Since the S M Krishna era, the Congress has not managed to win more than 80-85 seats. The 2013 election was an exception because of the BJP-KJP split,” a former Congress minister who served in Siddaramaiah’s Cabinet pointed out.
“He is simply unable to bring votes, which also shows that he is losing the support of communities that were believed to be with him.”
A section of senior Congress leaders who see Siddaramaiah as an outsider — he was with the JD(S) till 2005 — was irked when the high command reposed its faith in him despite losing the 2018 elections.
Siddaramaiah’s credibility was questioned after legislators who were his loyalists defected, leading to the fall of the Congress-JD(S) coalition. It was speculated that Siddaramaiah himself might have backed the defection. “The night before I resigned, Zameer Ahmed Khan was with me. What does that tell you?” Jarkiholi said, after his Gokak bypoll victory. Khan is a close aide of Siddaramaiah.
Siddaramaiah and Rao came under severe attack from some senior Congress leaders who accused them of taking “unilateral” decisions. Some in the party called the resignations a farce. “For all you know, they will say the high command did not accept their resignation.”