In a fresh twist to the ongoing power struggle in Karnataka, caste groups backing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy D K Shivakumar on Thursday threw their weight behind them, with one warning Congress against unseating the incumbent CM while the other community strongly batted for Shivakumar's elevation.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar wished Chief Minister Siddaramaiah 'all the best' after he said that he would complete a five year term in office. Shivakumar also commented on the ongoing cabinet reshuffle and MLAs meeting with leaders in Delhi.
There has been speculation within state's political circles, especially within the ruling Congress, for some time now about the CM change later this year, citing the power-sharing agreement involving incumbent Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday ruled out his resignation, following the Governor granting sanction to prosecute him, in connection with the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment 'scam', and said he had done no wrong to step down.
Vast experience in running the government and mass appeal across the state have favoured Siddaramaiah in the tightly contested race for Karnataka chief minister.
'Some of his ministers have performed abysmally, and Bommai has faced an unwanted campaign of religious polarisation imposed by national BJP leaders.'
Siddaramaiah's anti-urban bias, which he does not bother to hide, may become the Congress government's biggest weakness unless it is corrected.
Congress leaders and workers from Kolar have been exerting pressure on the Congress legislature party leader to contest from there.
Here is a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of the two aspiring CMs.
The Congress seems to be heading for the Karnataka polls so far on the strength of its local leadership and focusing on issues concerning the state, making corruption a central theme of its campaigning.
They are the contenders, the leaders of parties that will finally form a government in Karnataka.
Both the eight-time MLA Shivakumar and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah have made no secret of their ambition to become CM and had been involved in a game of political one upmanship in the past.
A renewed energy seems to have been infused into the 75-year old Congress leader Siddaramaiah's gait as he walked to address a packed press conference in Mysore on Saturday.
'Siddaramaiah was openly taking on the BJP's communal agenda, which very few non-BJP politicians do.'
The Congress Legislature Party, which met at a private hotel in Bengaluru on Sunday evening, passed a unanimous resolution authorising the party chief to pick its leader.
'People of the state who bless me will give a befitting replay to the Congress.'
'The BJP had no traction in Karnataka and Siddaramaiah would have scraped through if he had not done all that he did.' 'When you pander to one community, the other community gets irritated.' 'Then, when you make fun of the cow and the treating of the cow as sacred, in your effort to belittle the Sangh Parivar and its obscurantism, you are hurting your normal voters too.' 'It is okay to make fun of the Sangh Parivar, but it is not okay to make fun of all Hindus.'
12 years after he was sacked form JD-S, Siddaramaiah, offered Karnataka's CMship to his political foe Kumaraswamy.
According to some accounts, internal Congress surveys indicated a tough battle for the chief minister in Chamundeshwari.
'The Congress-JD-S alliance will be intact for the next three years, for sure.'
'There were areas where the JD-S put up weak candidates against the Congress to benefit the BJP.'
With the family patriarch ageing, his successor H D Kumaraswamy not keeping well, and palpable anger against his other son H D Revanna in the family pocket borough of Holenarsipura, the clan is seemingly in decline.
'Hindu voters in coastal Karnataka lean more towards Hindutva than Hinduism which explains why the Siddaramaiah government's perception as anti-Hindu worked wonders for the BJP in coastal Karnataka.'
With months to go for the Karnataka assembly elections, the man in the hot seat, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah says he'll make billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi and the Punjab National Bank scam an issue in the upcoming Karnataka elections . In an interview to CNN-News18's Deepa Balakrishnan, the CM also says that Hindutva is not a campaign issue in the state.
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