Siddaramaiah: The Indefensible

ADDRESSING AN EVENT to honour freedom fighter Sangolli Rayanna in Karnataka’s Belagavi district on August 26, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah defiantly declared that it was impossible to remove him from pow­er as long as he had the blessings of the people. Dubbing those acting against him “traitors”, he accused the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of plotting to dethrone him and claimed that the people’s faith in him was intact. Even if that were true, Siddaramaiah’s self-confidence has been visibly shaken and he can scarcely conceal the disappointed rage in his voice every time he is forced to address the allegations of corruption—in connection with alleged irregularities in the allotment of sites by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA)—that have sullied his image as a leader of exemplary moral standing. By exhibiting his desperation to cling to power, days before his petition questioning the legality of the sanction granted by the governor permitting investigation against him was to come up for hearing, Siddaramaiah seemed to have resigned himself to the fact that he may soon be hit by the proverbial bus. In a temporary relief, the High Court of Karnataka hadorderedaspecialcourt inBengalurutodefer further proceedings on complaints related to the MUDA case. Two private complaints had been filed by RTI activists, seeking an investigation into the involvment of Siddaramaiah and others in the allotment of 14 sites to the chief minister’s wife by MUDA. If indicted, Siddaramaiah will suffer a precipitous fall, having only just led the state Congress to a resounding victory in the Assembly elections of 2023. The reason he was able to pip several senior leaders, including Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief DK Shivakumar, to become chief minister was that his personal record as a politician who incites social progress within a capitalist system aligned perfectly with the narrative of social guarantees that Congress had sold to voters. The urge to topple such a hero, a leader with gravitas who had managed to challenge the dominant caste hegemony of Karna­taka politics, is real, and other aspiring chief ministers in Congress must secretly be thanking BJP for creating an opportunity.

To be sure, it took several attempts. The first allegations did not stick. When the state BJP accused Siddaramaiah of presiding over an alleged embezzlement of `94 crore from the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation (KMVSTDC), and attempted to paint him as a ‘villain’ for allegedly funnelling money meant for the underprivileged to his party’s coffers to fund election expenses, the chief minister, in a written reply to the Assembly, asserted that the Finance Department, which was under his purview, had no role to play in the matter. State minister for ST Welfare, B Nagendra, alone took the fall for the case and FIRs have since been filed against two Directorate of Enforcement (ED) officers for pressuring an official to implicate Siddaramaiah. The MUDA allegations, however, are personal in nature, and therefore, are a direct attack on his integrity as a politi­cian. They involve a 3.16-acre plot of land in Mysuru owned by his wife BM Parvathi—who, incidentally, had led a very private life before her name came up in connection with the case—that was acquired for the development of two phases of Devanoor Layout. But instead of being allotted sites in that very layout as com­pensation, Parvathi was given 14 premium sites in Vijayanagar Layout, in violation of state laws and allegedly as a ‘favour’ to the family. While the allotment was made during BJP leader Basavaraj Bommai’s term as chief minister, Siddaramaiah’s son Yathindra, who was the MLA from Varuna in Mysuru, was in a position of power at the time. And it was in 2014, during Siddaramaiah’s previous tenure as chief minister, that Parvathi had applied for compensation under MUDA’s 50:50 scheme, which compensates those whose undeveloped land is acquired with half of that land in a developed layout. Activists have dug up various irregularities in the case and alleged that the land, which Parvathi had received as a gift from her brother Mallikarjuna Swamy Devaraj, was illegally acquired by the latter using forged documents. Siddaramaiah’s attempts to brush off the case as being politically motivated, and to claim that the land was encroached upon without official permission and that his wife never sought any favours, have largely fallen on deaf ears. Instead, an unspoken ‘why’ dangles from the end of every accusation. Why did a man of his standing allow himself to be mired in such a matter?

Ever since Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot granted permis­sion to prosecute the chief minister, Siddaramaiah has been especially worried, even convening a Congress Legislative Party meeting on August 22 to ensure the support of MLAs before he went to Delhi to discuss the matter with the high command. The party’s central leadership, which had initially refrained from commenting on the issue, has of late made a show of support towards Siddaramaiah. Speaking to Open, senior Karnataka Con­gress leader RV Deshpande claimed there was “no question of a change in leadership in the Karnataka government. He remains a leader with no black spot marking his career. The high command is confident he will emerge victorious at the end of what might be a protracted legal battle. He has the full support of the party.”

BJP has meanwhile claimed that the 14 sites are just the tip of a `3,500 crore land allotment scam by Congress. “Initially, when we accused Siddaramaiah of illegally acquiring 14 sites, no one took it seriously—not the media, not even the BJP leader­ship. But as details have emerged to present a watertight case, it has become clear that he will have to pay the price,” says BY Vijayendra, the Karnataka BJP president, who led a week-long BJP-JD(S) joint padayatra from Bengaluru to Mysuru to demand the chief minister’s resignation. “Why did this allotment never come up in the MUDA meeting? If the chief minister was indeed innocent, why did he not agree to answer our questions during the recent Assembly session? Let the investigation implicate all illegal beneficiaries, whichever party they may belong to,” says Vijayendra, the man at the centre of what was a ginger attempt at exposing a small scam that has snowballed into a mighty political weapon today. The case, he says, may well be a turning point for the state’s politics.

A day before the monsoon session began, the Siddaramaiah government, on July 14, constituted a single-member inquiry com­mission under former high court judge Justice PN Desai to look into the MUDA scam, pre-empting any debate on the matter in the Assembly. The fact that Siddaramaiah was rattled is evident from how he played the caste card for perhaps the first time in his career, decrying that he was being targeted for hailing from a backward class. Surely, playing the victim cannot be easy for a man who has worn his pride and self-respect on his sleeve all his life. “But as the saying goes, those who live by the sword also die by it,” says a political observer. Certainly, within Congress, there is a sense of delaying the inevitable, if deferrable, confrontation with the man who controls the majority of the party’s MLAs. Should Siddaramaiah be forced to resign, he may well precipitate an implosion in the party. “The high command will have to defer to him on the choice of chief minister. He will not cede the position to his arch-rival DK Shivakumar, nor will he allow G Parameshwara to be appointed. This is why the Congress leadership has been play­ing nice of late—in their minds, the transition game has already begun,” says a party insider in Karnataka.

Even as seniors in Congress await their turn, the opposition has thrown a curveball that could upset the party’s succession plans. BJP Rajya Sabha MP Lahar Singh Siroya’s office in Bengalu­ru’s Dollars Colony is deceptively calm. His phones, however, will not stop ringing after his recent posts on social media where he has questioned the allocation of five acres of Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) land to a trust run by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge’s family. BJP has alleged nepotism and demanded a CBI probe into the matter and the dismissal of Priyank Kharge as Karnataka cabinet minister. What it has left unsaid is that Kharge senior, who is seen as a silent chief ministe­rial aspirant, may now find himself deemed unworthy of the post. “It was a difficult decision for me to take on such a powerful person, but I am not someone who targets people. I merely happened to come by information that was discovered by an RTI activist on a public forum. My question is, were there other trusts and individuals who were eligible for that parcel of land, and if so, why was it given to the Kharge family trust? Isn’t the family, which claims to work for Dalit emancipation, taking opportunity away from other Dalits?” asks Siroya. The information coming to light at a time when Congress is faced with a succession battle is interesting, he admits. “Ask yourself who stands to gain from disqualifying the senior leader from taking charge of the govern­ment,” he says. Priyank Kharge has clarified that the civic amenities sites are not allot­ted but purchased, with no rebate whatsoever for SC/ST welfare organisations. Only 43 organisations had applied for a total of 193 available sites, he has said, adding that the land was acquired by the Siddhartha Vihar Trust to set up a multi-skill development centre. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, too, has clarified that the allocation was done in accordance with the law.

Opposition leaders have alleged that the government, mired in scams and internal battles, has neglected administration. “Forget announcing any new schemes, they have failed to implement their guarantees. Money for Grihalakshmi has not been released since Lok Sabha elections,” says Vijayendra. “Congress’ mukhota of serving social justice now stands doubly exposed.” With a historic majority of 136 MLAs in a house of 224, the Congress government should have had it easy, but it has consistently found itself on the backfoot—from the enormous expenditure incurred on the social guarantees to the rivalry between the chief minister and the deputy chief minister, and now the scams coming to light barely 15 months into its rule. It remains to be seen how it survives the ongoing offensive against its most popular leader.

CongresscorruptionDK ShivakumarKarnatakapoliticsSiddaramaiah