DK Shivakumar: The man who checkmated Amit Shah in Karnataka

Tasked with keeping the flock together after the Karnataka Assembly Elections verdict revealed a fractured mandate, DK Shivakumar passed with flying colours on Saturday May 19, 2019.

The name of Doddalahalli Kempegowda Shivakumar is met with fear and awe in Karnataka in equal measure. The Congress’s master strategist, Vokkaliga strongman and former state Energy Minister will go down in history not only for engineering the loss of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the political thriller that followed the 2018 Karnataka verdict, but also for taking BJP National President Amit Shah head on and emerging victorious.  

Tasked with keeping the flock together after the Assembly verdict revealed a fractured mandate, DK Shivakumar could even be seen smirking by the time two-day Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa said that he was stepping down. Shivakumar is credited with personally keeping the flock together, ferrying the MLAs to Hyderabad and back, and ensuring that the BJP didn't get through to the Congress-JD(S) combine.

However, this isn’t the first time he was tasked with the job. In 2002, when the then-Congress leader and Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh was staring at a no-confidence motion, Shivakumar, a trusted aide of SM Krishna and the then-Karnataka Urban Development Minister, hosted the Congress MLAs at the now-infamous Eagleton Resort, and escorted them to Mumbai on the day of the trust vote, ensuring that they cleared it.

Less than a year ago, DK Shivakumar successfully prevented the horse-trading of 44 Gujarat MLAs ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls. This, just a week after there were Income Tax raids on 64 locations connected to him in a tax evasion case.

From his earliest days in Karnataka politics, Shivakumar has been an astute leader who has always played his cards well. When he filed his affidavit for the 2018 Assembly elections, he and his wife declared assets worth Rs 730 crore.

Born into an agricultural family, Shivakumar has been a member of the Congress since the beginning of his political career, after playing a leading role in the Youth Congress since his RC College days. He held the position of General Secretary of Karnataka State Youth Congress between 1983 and 1985. His first electoral success came when he was elected to the Zilla Panchayat in 1987.

At the age of 25, Shivakumar went up against seasoned politician HD Deve Gowda in Sathnur, where he lost by a slender margin. He contested again in the 1989 elections as an independent candidate and won. He became the youngest minister in the state just two years later, at the age of 30, where he served as a Minister of State under Chief Minister S Bangarappa from 1991 to 1992.

A seven-time MLA, Shivakumar was the campaign committee chairman – a post held by former Chief Ministers Siddaramaiah and SM Krishna earlier.

However, Shivakumar’s record is nowhere close to clean. He has been accused of illegal granite mining, encroachment of government land, tax evasion, Forest Act violations and corruption.

This record is said to be the reason former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah maintained his distance from Shivakumar when he came to power in 2013. The legislator from Kanakapura was then offered the Energy portfolio in 2014.

Politics

Even though Shivakumar has fought tooth and nail to install HD Kumaraswamy in the Chief Minister’s chair, there is no lost love between Shivakumar and the Gowdas. Both Vokkaligas, the battle has often been in Ramanagara district, the Vokkaliga heartland in Old Mysore. Shivakumar has gone head-to-head with former Prime Minister and veteran leader HD Deve Gowda in the past.

In the 2002 Lok Sabha bye-polls, Shivakumar lost to Deve Gowda. He then rose to fame during the 2004 Lok Sabha election, when he supported the candidature of newbie Tejaswini Sriramesh, a television journalist-turned-politician against Deve Gowda in Kanakapura. She went on to win by a landslide, and earned the reputation of being a giant killer. But it was Shivakumar, who was then the Urban Development Minister and Sathanur MLA – which was a part of the Kanakapura constituency – who earned the praise and trust of the Congress top brass by ‘discovering’ Tejaswini. 

He is also credited for the seven JD(S) MLAs rebelling against their party supremo and cross-voting in the 2016 Rajya Sabha polls.

The 2018 elections

A man with strategic prowess, D K Shivakumar has proven his mettle time and again, and has made clear that he intends to sit in the Chief Minister’s chair someday. With Shivakumar eyeing the post of Deputy Chief Minister for now, one will only have to wait and watch for what the Congress’ Chanakya does next.

Modi is so much vulnerable today

 

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Akhilesh Yadav was first to discover that Modi's winning spree is in fact is defeat of other parties divided. Ahead of Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls he reached out to his arch rival BSP Supremo Mayawati for exploring national interest in defeating Modi rather than fighting among themselves. And BJP's 2014 victory of Gorakhpur & Phulpur by over few lakh votes got inverted into defeat in 2018, by few lakh votes in the hands of SP+BSP. Just double digit winning of Gujarat elections and falling short of majority in Karnataka elections and subsequent unethical adventures by BJP, Modi & Co that compelled BJP new CM Yedurappa resign with in 55 hours, left Modi & BJP so much vulnerable they stand top of non performance, corruption, subversion of institutions, economy in shambles, ever rising crude oil prices threatening economic disasters and fiscal deficits makes winning 2019 general elections with just under 31% popular vote share an impossible task, with opposition getting united with a single objective of defeating BJP, everywhere. 

It is worry some for the BJP that the Karnataka setback has shown that the extra effort put in by Narendra Modi by raising the number of his rallies to 21 in the state did not pay dividends. BJP might have fared worse if Modi had stuck to his original plan to address 15 public meetings. In hindsight, it might have been better for the BJP if it had conceded defeat when it saw that it had fallen short of the target of 112 in the 224-member House. Instead, by opting for a floor test, Modi & Amit Shah combine provoked all the avoidable controversies about horse-trading and corruption and to cover up resorted to innumerable lies and lost credibility. Congress party releasing audio clips of BS Yedurappa, his son Vijayendra, BJP leaders Muralidhar Rao and Sriramulu had sealed the BJP’s fate. The potential turncoats in the Congress-JD(S) coalition were doubly convinced that siding with the BJP was a bad idea. With Modi losing his cutting edge as the party's only star campaigner and any hint that he can no longer enable the party to cross the winning line is a major concern when the BJP faces crucial assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in next few months' time. The burden he already carries as the spearhead of the BJP's campaign will become heavier after the Karnataka outcome.

Yedurappa resigns. But what about Governor Vajubhai Vala?

• Just two days after taking oath as the Chief Minister, Karnataka BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa resigned ahead of the crucial vote of confidence on the floor of the house.
• Outnumbered by the Congress-JD(S) combine, the BJP needed the support of 111 MLAs to sail through the vote of confidence on the floor of the house. It had only 104 and its efforts to buyout few MLAs from JDS and/or Congress fell flat leaving indelible blot on their face.
• In a surprise farewell speech in the Assembly, an emotional Yeddyurappa said he will campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and ensure that BJP wins all 28 LS seats in the state.
• The BJP never had the numbers, but the governor invited them to form government and generously gave 2 weeks time for horse-trading and winning trust motion on floor of the Assembly. But Supreme Court curtailed the time to just to 36 hours, only to avoid judicial scrutiny of actions of constitutional office of Governor.
• The Supreme Court today ordered live telecast of the floor test, when Congress challenged the appointment of KG Bopaiah (BJP MLA) as Protem Speaker who is not the senior most MLA but also with questionable past record as speaker.
• In a democracy we have to accept not only people's verdict but also the follow the rule of law.
• Earlier in the week, BJP which had emerged as the single largest party, was invited by the Governor Vajubhai Vala to form the government ignoring the post poll coalition between JDS and Congress, which together had 115 MLAs, well above the mark of simple majority of 112/222 which was challenged by JDS & Congress in Supreme Court for staying the swearing-in of BS Yedurappa as the Chief Minister. 
• "The Governor has invited us to form the government. The swearing in ceremony will be organised on Monday May 21, 2018. I have personally invited Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati, Chandrashekhar Rao and Chandrababu Naidu to attend the ceremony," Kumaraswamy told reporters.

Governor Vajubhai Vala's  baseless and senseless decision to invite minority BJP leader Yedurappa, ignoring JDS+Congress combine's leader HD Kumara Swamy with clear majority that lead to intense horse trading activity by BJP with unlimited budgets of several thousands of crores of rupees was thwarted by JDS & Congress leadership, cadre with support of Supreme Court interventions, almost all opposition leaders across many states, JDS & Congress MLAs unwilling to cross parties within hours of electing by public. Karnataka showed that the BJP's downslide has started with arrogant and audacious actions of Modi and Amit Shah, who lost their face with steep fall from their high moral ground to deep corruption. Their credibility is totally lost and this fiasco will have its telling effect on 2019 General Elections on Modi & BJP. The need of the hour is that Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala must resign and get out.