Karnataka’s new CM Siddaramaiah moved swiftly to show his mastery over the administration of a corruption-ridden state by announcing a slew of sops to the poor, and waiving loans worth `4,409 crore for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs and minorities.
There were two underlying messages behind this unilateral step that Congress veterans say should have been announced after a Cabinet was formed. One, that the 65-year-old with seven budgets under his belt and a Congressman for less than seven years was unquestioningly the man in charge. And second, that the Congress cannot afford to alienate the SC/ST/OBC/minority vote that put it in power with 36 per cent of the voteshare. This amorphous, fluid votebank must now be kept happy in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, where it will be left to the Congress in Karnataka to take up the slack in the South if the party can’t garner enough seats from neighbouring Andhra and Jayalalithaa-run Tamil Nadu.
Siddaramaiah’s calculated pandering to this section of society is a clear move by the new CM to set the Congress apart from the BJP and Janata Dal(S) governments that have gone before. Both were identified with majority castes — Lingayats and Vokkaligas respectively — which they traditionally tapped to shore up numbers.
The Congress under Siddaramaiah, who is already being described as a man in a hurry, has struck out on a different path; one where populist schemes like rice at `1 per kg will immediately affect over a crore BPL families from the OBC/ST/SC/minorities bracket.
Already hardcore Congressmen, resentful of Siddaramaiah’s unilateral moves to shower sops on this section of society, are saying it was done to douse the rising protests among dalits who wanted old warhorse Mallikarjun Kharge as chief minister, and that he failed to take along the party, which unitedly worked to win 121 seats.
In fact, the chief minister, who wants to keep both finance and water resources portfolios is in danger of driving a wedge between veteran Congressmen who feel left out and have quietly boycotted Siddaramaiah’s swearing-in, and the new entrants, mainly those who share his Kuruba ancestry and others who were part of his group in the Janata Parivar, which he, like them, quit in 2006 to join the Congress.
Not only must his government overhaul an administrative machinery mauled by the corrupt and maladroit BJP, and deliver effective governance, Mr Siddaramaiah must show he is a team player, pick an effective Cabinet rather than be the lone horse he has shown himself to be in his first week as chief minister.