In the wake of the appointments of new Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) presidents in some states in recent months, there are now indications that the All India Congress Committee (AICC) leadership may also do the same in Karnataka where the demand for naming a new state chief has been growing among a section of the party leaders.
The current Karnataka PCC (KPCC) president, D K Shivakumar, is also the Deputy Chief Minister, who holds the Bengaluru Development and Water Resources portfolios in the Congress government led by CM Siddaramaiah.
Shivakumar, a known aspirant of the CM post, has been the KPCC president since July 2020.
A minister in the Siddaramaiah Cabinet told The Indian Express that although there have been talks for months about the party leadership replacing Shivakumar as the KPCC chief, it appears “the change in this regard is imminent now”.
“Since December, we have been able to exert enough pressure on the party high command for it to finally take a call on it,” said the minister considered close to Siddaramaiah.
On Wednesday, AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge said he would appoint “two to three (new PCC chiefs) in the next two to three days”. He said the party has already appointed new presidents in some state Congress units recently.
“I have appointed a president for Odisha from the backward class community. We have appointed three to four more. Rest will happen one by one,” he told reporters at Kalaburagi.
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Kharge, who hails from Karnataka, also said the appointment of various office-bearers and heads of different party cells in some states would also be completed in “five to eight days”.
He, however, declined to comment specifically on the question of a new KPCC president’s appointment, saying there could be some changes when the subject is deliberated upon by the party leadership.
Some aspirants for the KPCC chief’s post have met Kharge in recent days. While Public Works Department Minister Satish Jarkiholi met the AICC chief in Delhi earlier this week, state Home Minister G Parameshwara had a meeting with Kharge in Bengaluru.
Amid the long-running rivalry between Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah, several state Congress leaders from the CM camp have been opposed to the former’s continuance as the KPCC chief, contending that “too much power has been concentrated in the Deputy CM’s hands”.
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The names of Jarkiholi, Parameshwara and Cooperation Minister K N Rajanna are currently doing the rounds as possible nominees for the KPCC chief’s position. They are all from the Dalit community.
There is also speculation about the “remote possibility” of the Congress picking a Lingayat as the state party president. Industries Minister M B Patil and Forest, Ecology and Environment Minister Eshwar Khandre are among the Lingayat aspirants in the race for the post.
Significantly, several leading Congress faces in this race are ministers who are affiliated to the Siddaramaiah camp. Some of them have urged the party high command to allow them to continue as both ministers and the KPCC president, citing the Shivakumar case, sources said.
On the other hand, the supporters of Shivakumar have been demanding his elevation to the CM’s post, referring to a “rotational CM formula” that was reportedly agreed upon after the party clinched the May 2023 Karnataka polls — though the Congress leadership has never officially confirmed or denied it.
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Last week, in a shot in the arm to Siddaramaiah, the Karnataka High Court rejected a plea filed by an RTI activist seeking a CBI probe into corruption allegations against the CM and his family over the allotment of 14 housing plots by the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) to his wife in Mysuru in 2021.