Congress top brass not sure of Karnataka win? View spreads, ex-PM Deve Gowda to back BJP if it's hung assembly

Deve Gowda with Siddaramaiah

By A Representative
Despite the hype created by Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah that the Congress would surely romp back to power in the forthcoming state assembly polls scheduled for mid-May, there appear to uncertainty within at the very top in the grand old party, if an article published in a media outfit directly controlled by party chief Rahul Gandhi is any indication.
Written by KS Dakshina Murthy, visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media, Bengaluru, the article, written amidst "disappointed ticket-seekers" shedding tears and "pugnacious politicians" raising their voices as the assembly elections approach, insists, there are some "obvious questions that dodge definitive answers" on whether the state will see "single party rule or a coalition."
Murthy quotes former United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in a totally different context, to sum up the situation. Rumsfeld said, if there are "things we know that we know", "there are things that we know we don't know", and, also, "there are things we don't know we don't know."
Given this framework, says Murthy, if there is just one "know" there are at least two "know unknowns" that may play a significant role in the eventual outcome. One of these is the Janata Dal (Secular) factor, while the other is the Lingayat issue.
Murthy, in his article in the online edition of "The National Herald", the newspaper founded by Jawaharlal Nehru, and currently controlled by the Gandhi family which holds the sway on the Congress, does not rule out the possibility of a hung assembly, "where the JD(S) can be the decider between being in government or the Opposition, the situation can turn tricky for the Congress and the BJP."
Murthy surprisingly underlines, "As it stands, the JD(S) has not clearly spelt out its position and is not likely to do so. The cards are however stacked in favour of it supporting BJP, in the event of a hung assembly. This prima facie reason is because the JD(S) patriarch, former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, has a sour relationship with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah."
According to Murthy, "Deve Gowda and Siddaramaiah go back a long way, with the former prime minister mentoring the chief minister in the early days of his career. With Gowda promoting his own son HD Kumaraswamy over Siddaramaiah, the relationship did not last. Siddaramaiah quit the JD(S) and joined the Congress in 2006. Not only did he cock a snook at Deve Gowda, he went on to become the chief minister."
In fact, says Murthy, "A few weeks ago the JD(S) leadership met senior Congress politicians and said the party would support it, but on the condition that Siddaramaiah is replaced by someone else. Since then, the Congress has all but taken on the JD(S), with party president Rahul Gandhi calling it JD (Sangh Parivar) and the ‘B’ team of the BJP."
The other “know unknown” is the Lingayat factor, says Murthy. "No party is sure which way the Lingayat vote will go, whether it will split or whether it will make no difference. Traditionally, the Lingayat vote was with the Congress. It then shifted to the erstwhile Janata Dal’s late leader Ramakrishna Hegde, who transferred it to the BJP during their alliance in 1999."
He continues, "In the 2004 and 2008 elections, the Lingayat vote was perceived to have gone en masse to the BJP, enabling its good showing. By recommending minority religion status to the Lingayats, a long-standing demand of the community, Siddaramaiah has calculated that it would benefit the Congress on the assumption that a large section of the community will favour his party."
However, Murthy underlines, "Since the state government’s recommendation was sent to the Centre, strangely not much is being spoken about the issue by both the Congress and the BJP."
According to Murthy, "While the Congress is wary of a blowback against its decision among sections of the community, the BJP is caught in a fix on how to respond to the decision. It can neither support nor oppose it, as either will result in flight of votes to the Congress. It has taken refuge under the excuse that it cannot take a decision as the model code of conduct is in place for the elections."

Comments

Covishield controversy: How India ignored a warning voice during the pandemic

Dr Amitav Banerjee, MD * It is a matter of pride for us that a person of Indian origin, presently Director of National Institute of Health, USA, is poised to take over one of the most powerful roles in public health. Professor Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian origin physician and a health economist, from Stanford University, USA, will be assuming the appointment of acting head of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA. Bhattacharya would be leading two apex institutions in the field of public health which not only shape American health policies but act as bellwether globally.

Growth without justice: The politics of wealth and the economics of hunger

By Vikas Meshram* In modern history, few periods have displayed such a grotesque and contradictory picture of wealth as the present. On one side, a handful of individuals accumulate in a single year more wealth than the annual income of entire nations. On the other, nearly every fourth person in the world goes to bed hungry or half-fed.

Thali, COVID and academic credibility: All about the 2020 'pseudoscientific' Galgotias paper

By Jag Jivan The first page image of the paper "Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis" published in the Journal of Molecular Pharmaceuticals and Regulatory Affairs , Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2020), has gone viral on social media in the wake of the controversy surrounding a Chinese robot presented by the Galgotias University as its original product at the just-concluded AI summit in Delhi . The resurfacing of the 2020 publication, authored by Dharmendra Kumar , Galgotias University, has reignited debate over academic standards and scientific credibility.

The 'glass cliff' at Galgotias: How a university’s AI crisis became a gendered blame game

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan* “She was not aware of the technical origins of the product and in her enthusiasm of being on camera, gave factually incorrect information.” These were the words used in the official press release by Galgotias University following the controversy at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi. The statement came across as defensive, petty, and deeply insensitive.

'Serious violation of international law': US pressure on Mexico to stop oil shipments to Cuba

By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

When grief becomes grace: Kerala's quiet revolution in organ donation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Kerala is an important model for understanding India's diversity precisely because the religious and cultural plurality it has witnessed over centuries brought together traditions and good practices from across the world. Kerala had India's first communist government, was the first state where a duly elected government was dismissed, and remains the first state to achieve near-total literacy. It is also a land where Christianity and Islam took root before they spread to Europe and other parts of the world. Kerala has deep historic rationalist and secular traditions.

When a lake becomes real estate: The mismanagement of Hyderabad’s waterbodies

By Dr Mansee Bal Bhargava* Misunderstood, misinterpreted and misguided governance and management of urban lakes in India —illustrated here through Hyderabad —demands urgent attention from Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the political establishment, the judiciary, the builder–developer lobby, and most importantly, the citizens of Hyderabad. Fundamental misconceptions about urban lakes have shaped policies and practices that systematically misuse, abuse and ultimately erase them—often in the name of urban development.

Activists warn of gendered impact of VB-GRAMG Act, seek return to MGNREGA framework

By A Representative The All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA), along with the Agrarian Alliance and Workers’ Forum of the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), has written to President Droupadi Murmu urging her to call upon Parliament to repeal the newly enacted Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 (VB-GRAMG Act) and restore and strengthen the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Stray dogs, an epsilon (ϵ) problem: Of child labour, and the art of misplaced priorities

By Bhaskaran Raman The Greek alphabet ϵ (epsilon) is used in maths and science to denote a quantity which is not zero, but extremely small *** Since the Supreme Court's interim order on the issue of stray dogs came out on 07 Nov 2025, there have been a range of opinion pieces speaking for the voiceless. Most of them take the stance that there is a "problem" with stray dogs, but that we need a humane solution. I agree with this broadly, but I think we need new terminology to talk about this.

Search This Blog