The Congress national leadership has decided that current Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will lead the state unit of the party to in Assembly elections next year. This effectively means that the 2018 Karnataka Assembly elections will be BS Yeddyurappa vs Siddaramaiah.
It may be noted here that Yeddyurappa — who had left the BJP to form his own political outfit, the Karnataka Janata Paksha, but returned to the party fold recently — has officially been declared the chief ministerial candidate of the saffron party by BJP national president Amit Shah.
Changes in Karnataka Congress
The Congress, in an official statement on "important decisions regarding party affairs in Karnataka," said on Wednesday, May 31, that Siddaramaiah would lead the party's charge in the upcoming Assembly elections. Siddaramaiah has been chief minister of Karnataka ever since the Congress was elected to power in 2013.
The Congress also retained G Paramashwara as Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee chief, but added that he would "his full time and energy in discharging responsibilities of the party president." He will also immediately resign from the state Cabinet, the party said. He is currently the home minister of Karnataka.
Rerun of 2008 elections?
The Siddaramaiah vs Yeddyurappa battle that the upcoming Karnataka Assembly polls are poised to see is the same situation the two leaders had found themselves in 2008. Yeddyurappa — who is also popularly referred to by his initials as BSY — had come out on top back then. His win had made him the first BJP chief minister in the state.
A lot of water has passed through the Cauvery since then, and one of the biggest changes in Indian polity since then is the strong emergence of the BJP across India. That emergence has limited the Congress to only two major states across the country: Punjab, which it won recently, and Karnataka. The big question now is whether Yeddyurappa will be able to repeat history and people will move one step closer to Congress-mukt Bharat — a Congress-free India.
