After months of tussling, denials and carefully choreographed public bonhomie, Karnataka now appears headed for a change of guard. Sources told India Today that the Congress high command has effectively conveyed to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah behind closed doors that he must step aside and make way for his deputy DK Shivakumar.

For the Congress leadership, the decision seemed less about rewarding one leader and more about containing a festering factional war before it spiralled into a Rajasthan-style crisis.

Shivakumar’s camp has long maintained there was an informal rotational arrangement struck in 2023 after the Congress swept to power in Karnataka. Siddaramaiah never publicly acknowledged such a deal. Instead, he kept a vice-like hold on power and vowed to serve the full five-year term.

That confidence became his biggest political miscalculation.

The 77-year-old mass leader believed his grip over legislators and backward class support base made him indispensable. Meanwhile, Shivakumar spent the past year steadily strengthening his equation with the Congress brass in Delhi.

By the time the halfway mark of the government passed, the battle had shifted from Bengaluru to the national capital.

Siddaramaiah’s inner circle increasingly projected the view that the Congress could not afford to unsettle a sitting Chief Minister who still enjoyed broad support among MLAs and key caste blocs.

Senior ministers seen close to Siddaramaiah — including MB Patil, G Parameshwara, Satish Jarkiholi, HC Mahadevappa and KJ George were part of strategy discussions and breakfast meetings held in Delhi ahead of the high-command talks.

But insiders say the Chief Minister relied too heavily on reassurance from loyalists and did not build a serious counter-strategy once murmurs of a leadership transition got louder.

Equally damaging, according to party functionaries, was Siddaramaiah’s belief that his equation with Rahul Gandhi would shield him from any abrupt leadership change.

Even as the Delhi leadership quietly assessed political options over the last six months, Siddaramaiah largely stayed focused on state administration and legislative arithmetic. Shivakumar, on the other hand, kept up relentless engagement with central leaders.

Siddaramaiah also appeared to underestimate the urgency with which the Congress high command wanted to end the public bickering between the two camps.

Repeated statements by second-rung leaders from both factions had begun embarrassing the party leadership nationally. Congress managers feared prolonged instability in Karnataka — one of the handful of states where the party is in power — could further weaken the organisation.

DK Shivakumar, who’s also the Karnataka Congress president, carefully avoided publicly escalating the confrontation. But there were no such checks on his supporters, who kept the leadership change pressure alive from the sidelines.

Unlike several Siddaramaiah loyalists who openly dismissed the rotational-chief-minister claims, Shivakumar rarely spoke directly about power-sharing in public. Instead, he repeatedly framed himself as a loyal party man who had sacrificed personal ambition for party unity.

Sources said Shivakumar maintained regular contact with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, reminding them of the “promise” allegedly made when Siddaramaiah was chosen over him as Chief Minister in 2023.

Unlike the noisy posturing by some supporters, Shivakumar’s core camp maintained unusual discipline. On multiple occasions, he reportedly pulled up loyalists for making provocative public remarks and even issued show-cause notices to some functionaries to avoid antagonising the high command. He also projected unity in the face of the BJP’s jibes over the power tussle.

That restraint appears to have worked in his favour.

During Tuesday’s marathon meetings at Indira Bhavan in Delhi, both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar met Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary KC Venugopal separately as the leadership weighed transition options.

Publicly, Congress leaders maintained that discussions centred on Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council elections. Privately, however, party insiders acknowledged that the leadership question dominated the consultations.

Sources indicated the high command explored a dignified exit formula for Siddaramaiah, including the possibility of a Rajya Sabha role and a larger national assignment.

For the Congress leadership, the Karnataka crisis had become less about personalities and more about damage control.

The fear in Delhi was that allowing the standoff to drag on would deepen factional paralysis inside the government and hurt governance. Party strategists were also wary of a replay of the debilitating infighting between the Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot camps that had weakened the Congress in Rajasthan before the BJP returned to power there.

By finally nudging Siddaramaiah toward an exit, the high command appears to have concluded that Shivakumar’s patience, organisational utility and persistent outreach outweighed the risks of a leadership switch.

Whether the transition stabilises Karnataka Congress or merely opens a new chapter in the rivalry may become clear only in the months ahead.

Source: India Today