Bengaluru: The Congress party has shortlisted at least five names for the post of president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) who would lead the party unit when it goes to the polls in 2018, according to two people familiar with the development.
The change of guard--expected to be completed in about a month—is also expected to see a non-Dalit take charge of the party to give equitable representation to all communities when it replaces G. Parameshwar, who has served as KPCC chief since October 2010.
The prospective names include M.B.Patil, water resources minister; S.R. Patil, former information technology/biotechnology minister; D.K. Shivakumar, energy minister; Dinesh Gundu Rao, incumbent working president of KPCC; and former minister of state for railways K.H. Muniyappa.
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The party’s central leadership is taking no chances with Karnataka and carefully considering candidates from all castes for the top post to retain power in the state—one of only seven states the party is in power; five on its own and two coalition governments in the country.
The party had also appointed K.C. Venugopal as the new general secretary and Karnataka-in-charge, replacing senior leader Digvijay Singh. The centrally appointed team will visit the state from 8 May. On Thursday, the party appointed F.H. Jakkappanavar as the chairman of the scheduled caste department of the KPCC.
Caste considerations have played a major role in Karnataka with most parties claiming to champion the cause of socially and economically backward classes.
“We will give a chance for a member of another community as we have Mallikarjuna Kharge—a dalit—as the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha,” one of the two people cited above said, requesting not to be named.
Harish Ramaswamy, political analyst and professor at the Karnataka University, Dharwad, says that the Congress party in Karnataka has been unable to break the shackles of caste-led politics and its continued pursuit of this strategy will only continue the “feudal politics” practised in the state.
While chief minister Siddaramaiah-backed M.B.Patil and S.R.Patil are Lingayats, Shivakumar is a prominent Vokkaliga leader, Rao a Brahmin and Muniyappa is from the Dalit community, indicating that the party is carefully weighing caste equations to retain Karnataka in the Congress fold.
Patil was offered the KPCC president’s post last year, but he declined it as he wanted to focus on completing large-scale irrigation projects before the five-year term of the government ends.
But Siddaramaiah has an uphill task in pushing his choice of candidates in a party where senior leaders are trying to limit his growing influence after the Congress scored by-election victories in Nanjangud and Gundlupet.
Siddaramaiah’s decision to back Lingayat candidates may come as a surprise to many as the politician from the Kuruba community—a backward class—stormed to power in 2013 on a AHINDA (acronym for minorities, backward classes and dalits) support base. He commissioned a caste census in 2015—the first since 1932—which was aimed at determining the exact population of each community, a move that many saw as an attempt to undermine the influence of the Lingayats and Vokkaligas—believed to be the two biggest communities—in the state. Though the report is yet to be released officially, leaked findings bring down the Lingayat population to around 9% from earlier estimates of 16-17% and the Vokkaligas to around 8% from 14-15%. The leaked report, the findings of which have been officially denied by the government, states that the dalits make up almost 22-24% of the total population. Both the Lingayats and Vokkaligas communities have threatened to hold protests against any such findings.
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One explanation of Siddaramaiah’s backing for M.B.Patil and S.R.Patil is that it would help counter the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) chief ministerial candidate and Lingayat strongman B.S.Yeddyurappa.
The other possibility, according to Ramaswamy, is that the new president would be made a ‘scapegoat’ by the chief minister if the election does not yield intended results.
Dinesh Gundu Rao says there a combination of factors that help decide the right candidate for the post of president and that caste is only one of many components.
He lists other factors like the region the candidate represents (north or south Karnataka), his influence in the party and past performance as more important parameters.