In the race for the CM post, Shivakumar runs into bumps, CBI assets case to Satish Jarkiholi muscle-flexing

D K Shivakumar, Deputy Chief Minister, and state Congress chief of Karnataka has experienced a series of defeats in recent days, potentially jeopardizing his goal to succeed Siddaramaiah as CM in the midst of the party-led government’s mandate and paving the way for other hopefuls.

On October 19, the Karnataka High Court dismissed an FIR filed by the CBI against Shivakumar on corruption charges for allegedly accumulating excessive assets while serving as a Congress minister in the state between 2013 and 2018.

Earlier that week, when Shivakumar visited Belagavi to attend a Dasara ceremony, none of the region’s 11 Congress MLAs, including his close aide Lakshmi Hebbalkar, showed up to greet him.

At the same time, Satish Jarkiholi, the PWD minister and state Congress working president who is also a close Siddaramaiah associate and a CM aspirant, planned to take a group of 20 party MLAs from the region on a tour to see the Dasara festivities in Mysuru, Siddaramaiah’s home district. Even as the scenario reminded flashbacks of his elder brother Ramesh Jarkiholi’s revolt against Shivakumar in 2019, which led to the fall of the then Congress-JDS coalition government, the Congress central leadership had to intervene and beg Jarkiholi to drop the proposal.

A week earlier, on October 12-13, the Income Tax officials searched the civil contractors’ Bengaluru offices and seized approximately Rs 94 crore in cash. BJP, the opposition party, claimed that the discovered cash was related to the Congress. Although no proof has been presented to support the accusation, Shivakumar stated that the raids were “politically motivated” and that “IT raids are not conducted in BJP-ruled states.”

These changes occurred when Shivakumar had been positioning himself to stake his claim on the CM’s job based on a strong Congress showing in the state’s 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Meanwhile, his Congress opponents are aiming to keep him away in order to ensure Siddaramaiah’s complete term or to portray another face as his successor.

A Congress MLA has written to the party’s high command requesting the appointment of three more Deputy Chief Ministers (DCMs) beside Shivakumar to “balance castes.” The action is interpreted as an attempt by the Siddaramaiah camp, which has the support of the majority of party MLAs, to rein in Shivakumar.

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