AA Edit | Karnataka: Congress HQ Must Step In

The Congress has, of late, developed a curious pattern of gaining and losing power in states. The local leadership with grassroots connects unseats the main rival, mostly from the BJP, and in rare instances a regional power. The national leadership extends its might, political as well as financial, in helping it over the finishing line ahead of the rival. However, once in power, the very same local leaders fight among themselves even while the high command watches from a distance. A leadership change may or may not happen but the party inevitably goes on to lose the next election.

The Congress government in Karnataka is going through the same motions now. Chief minister Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president D.K. Shivakumar led the party to a historic victory in the southern state fighting and defeating the BJP which tried every trick in the election book and deployed the crassest version of communalism in the 2023 elections. But the Congress stood firm on its secular plank unmindful of the consequences and emerged victorious.

But a war broke out as soon as the results were announced, followed by an uneasy truce. Two-and-a-half years on, a controversy is now raging through the ranks about an unauthentic peace formula which talked of Mr Siddaramaiah handing over the top job to Mr Shivakumar.

The high command is, as usual, procrastinating on its role to intervene and allowing the situation to drift. It must sit both leaders down and insist on a solution even if it may draft the services of leaders with grassroots connections who can articulate the party position on the question of leadership. Only immediate and definitive action could save the party and the government in the state. It would be suicidal for the party to allow its government to go down in the disastrous pattern it has followed now for quite some time.