Despite the over-the-top celebrations in the Congress camp, which had the unprecedented event of Rahul Gandhi actually showing his face after an election result, there’s no denying that the Congress is infinitely worse off after the results.
Despite the over-the-top celebrations in the Congress camp, which had the unprecedented event of Rahul Gandhi actually showing his face after an election result, there’s no denying that the Congress is infinitely worse off after the results.
They are losing the Chief Ministerial seat to a regional party who only won 37 seats. Their own count has gone down from 120 to 78 and the BJP’s has increased from 40 to 104. However, one Congressman who will be laughing from ear to ear, and who’s been hailed as the man-of-the-match - DK Shivakumar.
A Vokkaliga leader from the Old Mysore region, his tangles with Deve Gowda are legendary. Now, he is the one who reportedly floated the boat to JD(S) to keep them out of power. As of now, he’s also the man who has stopped BJP state president Amit Shah – twice. The first time was when he managed to keep Congress Gujarat MLAs at a resort to keep the flock together during Ahmed Patel's Rajya Sabha election. The second time was in 2018 when he did the same for JD(S) MLAs.
For his efforts during the Rajya Sabha election, he was personally thanked by Ahmed Patel and Sonia Gandhi. During this period, he was raided by IT officials who swooped down on him, his brother and other acquaintances.
He first hit the spotlight in 2002, when the Congress-led Vilasrao Deshmukh government was on the brink of a collapse when he moved his MLAs to neighbouring Karnataka. SM Krishna, the former CM, entrusted the responsibility to his young urban Development Minister.
He had made a bid for the KPCC chief’s post before the elections, but the high command gave G Parameshwara an extension since he was viewed as a threat by Siddaramaiah.
Before the elections, he had declared that he was an educationist and a social worker, and he and his wife declared combined assets worth Rs 730 crore. He declared assets worth Rs 618 crore, which had tripled since 2013 when he had declared assets worth Rs 215 crore.
He won his first assembly election in 1989 from Santhanur in Kanakpura Taluk by defeating former PM HD Deve Gowda. He was made junior minister with Prisons and Homeguards portfolio, at the age of 29. Even when Gowda came to power in 1994, he was on the few to hold his own.
In this election, when Assembly gave a fractured mandate, Shivakumar joined hands with his sworn enemies, the Gowdas to keep the BJP out of power. He even kept JD(S) MLAs at the Eagleton resort for three days, before taking them by bus to Hyderabad.
Making sure that no Cong MLAs ‘switched’ over, he even brought back two ‘missing’ MLAS – Pratap Gouda Patil and Anand Singh. He had said from the day one of the crisis: “Not one member from the Congress and JD-S will cross over to the BJP. I have managed Maharashtra and Gujarat MLAs, just wait and watch.' As soon as Kumaraswamy agreed, Shivakumar was the go-to man to see the political alliance through.As thing stands, it looks unlikely that he will be made the Deputy CM and the post is more likely to go to G Parameshwar, the Dalit leader to avoid too much Vokkaliga representation in the Karnataka government.
During the IT raid, an FIR was registered against the minister on allegations of destroying documents. He had told the media: “I am not scared of anyone. Let the case be referred to the Enforcement Directorate or the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) or let them even try to send me to Parappana Agrahara (the central prison in Bengaluru), I will not bend to anyone’s will.”
He had alleged that the Centre was using the IT Department to target him and had said: “On August 2, the Income Tax raids had happened. I was just carrying out the responsibility given to me by the party and was hosting the MLAs from Gujarat. That time the I-T Department conducted the raids.”
He had bragged: “Jail, CBI, ED and BJP do not make me tense. They still don’t know who I am. From a small village to becoming a politician, I have come so far and succeeded. Why did the I-T Department take seven months to file the FIR? Clearly it is politically motivated. I am an honest taxpayer and even I know the law. I will never evade it.”
It looks unlikely that the suave politician will disappear from public memory any time soon.
With inputs from PTI
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