Siddaramaiah resigns, brings curtains down on tenure as Karnataka’s longest-serving CM

Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, regarded as the Congress’s tallest mass leader in recent times, submitted his resignation to the Governor at Lok Bhavan here on Thursday, bringing an end to his tenure as the state’s longest-serving Chief Minister.

The development also brought the curtain down on weeks of intense political drama and speculation surrounding a possible leadership change in Karnataka.

Siddaramaiah submitted his resignation to the Governor’s Secretary in the presence of Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, all cabinet ministers and other prominent party leaders.

Later, addressing a joint press conference in Bengaluru alongside Shivakumar and Home Minister G. Parameshwara, Siddaramaiah said: “I have submitted my resignation from the Chief Minister’s post to the Governor’s Secretary.”

“The Governor was not in town, and officials informed me that he would return by tonight. Against this background, I have submitted my resignation letter to the Governor’s Secretary. I have always said, both inside and outside the Assembly, that whenever the high command directs me, I will tender my resignation. Two days ago, the high command asked me to step down and, keeping my word, I am submitting my resignation.”

Siddaramaiah, 78, now joins an elite group of Karnataka politicians who have occupied the Chief Minister’s post more than once, including S. Nijalingappa, Veerendra Patil, D. Devaraj Urs, Ramakrishna Hegde, H.D. Kumaraswamy, and B.S. Yediyurappa.

Born in August 1947 in Siddaramanahundi village of Mysuru district, Siddaramaiah rose from humble beginnings to become one of Karnataka’s most influential political leaders. As a child, he tended cattle and began his formal education directly from Class 4. He later completed a law degree before entering politics.

His father, Siddarame Gowda, had unsuccessfully contested Gram Panchayat elections and reportedly advised Siddaramaiah not to trust people in politics. However, Siddaramaiah went on to successfully contest and win a Taluk Board election, marking the beginning of his long political journey.

Over the course of his career, Siddaramaiah contested 12 Assembly elections and won nine of them. He also holds the record for presenting 17 state budgets.

JD-S supremo and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda is widely regarded as Siddaramaiah’s political mentor, who helped shape him into a mass leader. However, ideological and political differences later led Siddaramaiah to part ways with Deve Gowda and the Janata Dal. He subsequently joined the Congress and went on to become a two-term Chief Minister and Karnataka’s longest-serving CM.

Siddaramaiah is known for several major welfare and social justice initiatives during his political career. His decisions on internal reservation, reservation for oppressed communities in government tenders, and providing large-scale representation to backward and oppressed classes in the cabinet have often been described by supporters as path-breaking measures.

He also emerged as one of the Congress’s strongest critics of the BJP, RSS, Hindutva politics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

At the same time, Siddaramaiah has often faced criticism from political opponents, who accused him of pursuing appeasement politics.

Siddaramaiah’s political journey spans nearly five decades and includes several major turning points. He first contested the Assembly election in 1978 from the Chamundeshwari constituency on the ticket of the Lok Dal led by former PM Charan Singh, but lost. In 1983, he won from Chamundeshwari as an Independent candidate. He later became the Transport Minister in the S.R. Bommai cabinet in 1988. However, in 1989, he lost the Assembly election from Chamundeshwari. In 1991, he contested the Lok Sabha election from Koppal but suffered defeat.

In 1992, Siddaramaiah joined the Janata Dal following the merger of the Samajwadi Janata Party. His political career gained momentum in 1994 when he won from Chamundeshwari for the third time and became Finance Minister in the Deve Gowda cabinet. In 1996, he was elevated as Deputy Chief Minister in the late J.H. Patel government. He secured his fourth victory from Chamundeshwari in 2004.

A major turning point came in 2005 when Siddaramaiah launched the AHINDA movement and was later expelled from the JD-S. In 2006, he joined the Congress in the presence of its then-President Sonia Gandhi and won a by-election by a narrow margin of 257 votes. In 2008, he won from Varuna and became MLA for the sixth time.

Siddaramaiah reached the peak of his political career in 2013 when he took the oath as the Chief Minister of Karnataka on May 13. In the 2018 Assembly elections, he won from the Badami constituency while losing from Chamundeshwari. Later in 2018, after the formation of the Congress-JD-S coalition government, he was appointed chairman of the coordination committee between the two parties. Later, he served as the opposition leader in 2019.

With Siddaramaiah stepping down from office, Karnataka politics now enters a new phase, even as his supporters describe his tenure as one of the most influential and transformative periods in the state’s political history.

IANS