The major issue after the Congress romped back to power in Karnataka assembly elections with the highest vote share in 34 years is who would be the next Chief Minister. Due to the repeated meetings in Delhi, where former CM Siddaramaiah also attended, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee chairman DK Shivakumar postponed his trip to Delhi at the last minute on Monday. Shivakumar, who had declared his plans to travel earlier in the day, cancelled them due to ill health. Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar were set to meet AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge and former AICC President Sonia Gandhi.
In a conversation with the media, Shivakumar stated that he does not know the number of legislators that support Siddaramaiah but wishes him the best of success. DK Shivakumar has also told the media that he will follow the decision of the party's high command. He also stated that he could not travel to Delhi since he has a stomach infection that requires medical attention. "I don't rebel because it's not in my nature." "I don't use blackmail," Shivakumar explained.
It comes just a day after the newly elected Congress MLAs met for the first time on Sunday at the Hotel Shangri-La in Bengaluru, with the legislators voting in secret. Though several figures have surfaced in the media on how many votes the two leaders - Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar - obtained as choices for Chief Minister, a senior politician has said that no such voting took place. MLAs were told they could write whatever they wanted and that they did not have to pick between Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar.
Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, MLA Satish Jarikholi, Zameer Ahmed Khan, and others had already arrived in Delhi to meet with senior Congress leaders, according to sources at the KPCC office in Bengaluru. During the Congress Legislature Party meeting, it was unanimously resolved that Kharge would be tasked with picking the party's next leader.
DK Shivakumar stated that the Congress was able to achieve a significant majority under his leadership. He also stated that he had delegated leadership to the party's upper echelon. The Vokkaliga community has requested that Shivakumar be given the chance to become Chief Minister, and support for both leaders has grown since the elections were announced.
The party gained 135 seats with almost 43% of the vote and a 7% margin over the BJP, which is a big morale boost for the leading national opposition party. According to political observers, the X factors that led to Congress's victory could have been its strong support for social welfare pledges as well as aggressive campaigns against corruption.
