The deputy CM further wrote: “The CM decided to reshuffle the cabinet. Everyone wants to become a minister, so it is quite natural for them to meet the leadership in Delhi. It is their right. We can’t stop them and say no. The CM has said that he will complete 5 years. I wish him all the best. We will all work with him…”
All 140 MLAs are my MLAs. Making a group is not in my blood.
The CM decided to reshuffle the cabinet. Everyone wants to become a minister, so it is quite natural for them to meet the leadership in Delhi.
It is their right. We can’t stop them and say no.The CM has said that… pic.twitter.com/XSZ1ZiqXC8
— DK Shivakumar (@DKShivakumar) November 21, 2025
However, people aware of the developments indicate that Siddaramaiah was never concerned about being replaced in the first place.
The 77-year-old chief minister believes his position has only become stronger with the high command unlikely to make any changes for the moment.
For now, Congress sources say, Siddaramaiah has bought time by offering to revamp his cabinet to bring in a dozen new faces while urging the top leadership to defer a discussion on the change of guard by a couple of months.
On 6 January, Siddaramaiah will surpass D. Devaraj Urs’s 45-year-old record to become Karnataka’s longest-serving chief minister. Urs was chief minister across two terms—between 1972 and 1977 and then from 1978 to 1980—totalling 2,790 days.
“News of any revolution or leadership change was manufactured by the media. I had told the high command that after 2.5 years, we will do a (cabinet) reshuffle, and because of that these talks (leadership changes) are coming up,” Siddaramaiah told reporters Thursday.
He added that any such discussions were “unnecessary”.
Incidentally, Siddaramaiah was in Chamarajanagar Thursday, seeking to dispel the superstition that any chief minister who visits the south-western district loses power.
“It is a superstition that if I come to Chamarajanagar, I will lose power. I visited here to dispel that superstition, and I said that my power will be secure now and in the future,” he said.
Earlier Friday, Congress general secretary Randeep Singh Surejwala wrote on X that he had had a discussion with Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, both of whom had “agreed that a decisively defeated and faction ridden Karnataka BJP, alongwith a section of the media”, were “designedly” running a campaign to malign Karnataka’s Congress government with an aim to undermine its achievements.
The party, Surjewala added, had “sternly warned” some Congress leaders and MLAs against making any public statements on the issue of leadership or “falling for the agenda being propagated by the vested interests”.
Had a discussion with Karnataka CM and Deputy CM and they agreed that a decisively defeated and faction ridden Karnataka BJP, alongwith a section of the media, are designedly running a maligning campaign against Karnataka and its Congress Government.
The sole idea is to…
— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) November 21, 2025
Also Read: From Narayana Murthy to Mazumdar-Shaw and Pai—why industry captains make CM Siddaramaiah angry
Unwritten agreement
Analysts say the party is unlikely to replace Siddaramaiah at the moment as Karnataka is one of the few stable Congress governments.
Moreover, replacing Siddaramaiah would risk losing the party’s backward classes base and also upset the political equilibrium in the state.
Having lost the Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra elections, and with its presence waning in places like West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the party’s high command will be in no hurry to take any decision that could endanger one of its last remaining strongholds.
That’s not to say that there has been no talk about leadership change since then, with loyalists making claims for and against both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar.
When the Congress stormed to power in May 2023, the party high command is believed to have brokered a deal between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar to break the deadlock. The unwritten agreement was that the two leaders would take turns as CM, with Shivakumar replacing Siddaramaiah at the halfway mark.
Siddaramaiah took oath as CM on 20 May 2023, and Shivakumar became his sole deputy while also retaining his position as the chief of the state Congress unit.
‘Backward classes consolidation’
Analysts say a leadership change is also unlikely because of Karnataka’s caste dynamics.
Over the decades, Karnataka’s politics has been dominated by the Lingayats and Vokkaligas.
In the state’s history of 23 chief ministers, only seven have been from communities other than the Lingayats and Vokkaligas. Of the seven—Urs, Gundu Rao, Ramakrishna Hegde, S. Bangarappa, Dharam Singh, Veerappa Moily and Siddaramaiah—only Hegde was from a party other than the Congress.
Three were from backward communities: Bangarappa was an Eediga, Moily was from the Devadiga community and Siddaramaiah hails from the Kuruba community.
Siddaramaiah, like Urs, has centred his politics around AHINDA (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits) and other oppressed classes.
He was even made the head of the AICC’s OBC advisory council earlier this year.
“Rahul Gandhi is centering his politics around social justice and OBCs at the national level. This may not have worked in Bihar but the minorities and a big chunk of the SC/ST communities are still with the Congress, especially in Karnataka,” A. Narayana, a Bengaluru-based political analyst and faculty at Azim Premji University (APU), told ThePrint.
The analyst added that the only weak link is the fragmented OBC bloc, some of whom either support other parties or are gravitating towards them, and only a person like Siddaramaiah can stop this.
The CM has also commissioned a caste census that aims to challenge the dominance enjoyed by certain communities and likely increase reservation for socially, economically and politically backward classes.
With the BJP and its affiliates making an aggressive outreach to oppressed classes, replacing Siddaramaiah is likely to send a wrong message, analysts add.
Siddaramaiah, at least for the moment, commands the following of most OBC communities and his removal is likely to cost the Congress, Narayana added.
Siddaramaiah’s link with the ongoing socio-economic and educational survey, or ‘caste-census’, positions him as a champion of the backward classes within a political landscape dominated by Lingayats and Vokkaligas.
At an event to unveil the statue of former Backward Classes Commission chairman L.G. Havanur this week, Siddaramaiah recalled his own struggles and fight with caste discrimination.
He narrated how he stood up for the rights of the oppressed classes when casteist remarks were made against him or in his presence. “We thought education would remove the caste system. Now there is 78 percent literacy, but 78 years after Independence, the caste system remains. From the time of Buddha and Basavanna, caste has remained.”
“Our social system has no direction. Those who benefit from the caste system, they are strengthened. We have not come out of our slave mentality,” Siddaramaiah added.
He is a strong advocate for “self respect” among oppressed classes, has gone against the disproportionate benefits enjoyed by dominant communities and even decided to accord minority religion status to Lingayats in 2018.
In Karnataka’s political and social landscape, caste plays an undeniable role. It is widely believed that Lingayats largely back the BJP while the Vokkaligas support the former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda-led JD(S).
The Congress relies on the backward classes, Dalits and minorities, and Siddaramaiah has been the face of his caste coalition.
Replacing a backward-class leader with one from the dominant community would only be counterintuitive, observers argue, since there is no guarantee that they will remain with the party in future elections.
Shivakumar, who is from the dominant Vokkaliga community, on the other hand, has openly called for scrapping the earlier caste census, standing firmly with calls from the Vokkaliga community to unite and retain its position in Karnataka’s complex caste dynamics.
Upsetting the political applecart at the moment may also be risky as a chunk of Karnataka’s popular welfare schemes are strongly associated with Siddaramaiah, be it the ‘Bhagya’ brand of welfare in his first term (2013-18) or the current “guarantees”.
Siddaramaiah has also presented 16 budgets and has the reputation of being an experienced administrator.
“When there are so many things associated with Siddaramaiah and the rival contender has nothing to counter this, then where is the challenge,” one senior Congress leader said, requesting anonymity.
Also Read: Siddaramaiah’s push to include Kurubas in ST fold ruffles complex caste dynamics in Karnataka
‘Upset equilibrium’
Since 2023, a large number of Congress legislators have openly sided with Siddaramaiah and argued that he is irreplaceable.
For every MLA or leader speaking in favour of Shivakumar, many more are backing Siddaramaiah. Much of this support is from those who followed him from the Janata Dal (Secular), or JD(S), in 2006 to the Congress, and currently occupy plum positions.
“There has not been a time that Siddaramaiah was not given the best possible position. The high command overlooked several heavyweights to make him the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in 2008 and then again in 2019, then CM twice and even elevated him to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) when he lost power in 2018,” one Congress leader said, requesting anonymity.
When Siddaramaiah entered the Congress, former chief minister Dharam Singh was the LoP, followed by Mallikarjun Kharge, who was widely believed to become the “next CM” if the party returned to power.
Siddaramaiah’s entry and steady rise within the party led to several seniors being overlooked.
In 2008, Siddaramaiah was made the LoP, replacing Kharge, who then shifted to national politics in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
Though Kharge is the national president of the Congress party, it is widely believed that he was unable to occupy the state chief minister’s post due to the robust support Siddaramaiah commanded among legislators.
Analysts and party leaders argue that Siddaramaiah is the only possible mass leader within the Congress, while Shivakumar and Kharge’s clout is limited to certain geographical areas.
Narayana says that the string of defeats in other state assemblies makes it harder for the Congress to stir up one of its strongholds.
“Why would any high command, especially at a time when his (Rahul Gandhi) performance is so poor across the country, opt for a less stable equilibrium by sacrificing a stable equilibrium?” he added.
One senior Congress leader and cabinet minister said that any change in leadership would “upset” the political landscape for the party.
While the Shivakumar camp has argued that MLAs would “fall in line” if the high command announced a change in leadership, analysts caution that such a move will only benefit the opposition—the BJP and JD(S)—by creating room for disgruntled elements.
They added that many of these Congress MLAs are regional satraps who rely more on their individual ability to win than the party symbol, leaving room for possible defections if forced to work under a leader they find incompatible.
‘No basis for claims’
One of the conditions that Shivakumar is believed to have put forth to the high command in May 2023 was to get two key portfolios, Bengaluru development and irrigation, and remain the KPCC chief and be the only deputy CM in Karnataka.
The high command complied, giving the keys of one of India’s most talked about cities to Shivakumar.
Although Bengaluru had a reputation for poor and inadequate infrastructure long before Shivakumar took over, a large part of the blame—at least for not fixing its challenges—fell on the deputy chief minister.
Shivakumar has often been targeted for proposing big-ticket projects, like the Tunnel Road, Skydeck and other vanity projects instead of fixing the city’s potholed roads, garbage mismanagement and infamous traffic.
He had even likened the airing of infrastructure-related grievances by a city-based startup CEO to “blackmail” and dismissed concerns about the city’s roads raised by three young school-going students in a viral video as “all politics”.
Industry captains, like Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Mohandas Pai, have persistently voiced concerns on the issue of Bengaluru’s crumbling infrastructure, pressing the state government to do better and provide the basics.
The poor quality of public infrastructure has also been used as a clarion call by neighbouring states to woo companies away from Bengaluru.
One leader said that Shivakumar lacked a strong performance record in his portfolios, was not considered the undisputed leader of the Vokkaliga community, and was further weakened by his brother D.K. Suresh’s loss in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the absence of any written agreement that he would be made CM.
Moreover, Shivakumar singing the RSS anthem in the state Assembly in August left the Congress red-faced and evoked sharp criticism from the core support base of the party which has been fighting the Sangh’s ideology.
In contrast, Siddaramaiah’s position is aligned with Rahul Gandhi in taking on the RSS and calling out their caste biases, especially in Karnataka’s coastal region.
Political observers add that becoming one of the country’s richest MLAs with cases of alleged money laundering against him has cast a shadow over any claim Shivakumar may have made.
Though Shivakumar, as party chief, led the Congress to a landslide victory in 2023, there is no set precedent that the KPCC President automatically becomes the CM.
Only S.M. Krishna and Veerendra Patil, who were KPCC presidents, became CMs after election victories. In Siddaramaiah’s case, he became CM twice, and both times, he was not the KPCC president.
One leader said that being rewarded for being KPCC president should have been the claim in 2023 and not three years later.
“Everyone has that desire. His (Shivakumar’s) fans are praying for it, but we work within the party framework. The CM and deputy CM have to abide by party guidelines,” Suresh told reporters Thursday.
“These decisions are taken at the highest levels of the party. The CM’s post is not empty right now. If any decision is taken, the high command will take it,” he added.
There are also those arguing in favour of rewarding Shivakumar’s loyalty to the Congress and the Gandhis.
But analysts say that rewarding loyalty is contingent on remaining in power; otherwise, the party could face an organisational nightmare of the kind in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and other places.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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