The first meeting of the newly elected Congress MLAs at Hotel Shangri-La in Bengaluru on Sunday, May 14 ended with the legislators casting their vote through a secret ballot. Though many numbers are doing the rounds in the media on how many votes the two leaders – Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar – got as choice for Chief Minister, a senior legislator told TNM that it was not a ballot of that sort. MLAs were asked to write whatever they chose, they were not asked to pick sides between Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar. “Some could have written Siddaramaiah’s name, some might have written DK Shivakumar’s, but most would have written high command. I am sure a few wrote their own names, and some would have said ‘no comments’,” the legislator said.
The task of choosing either Siddaramaiah or DK Shivakumar is not an easy one for most legislators as both the leaders had likely contributed to their victory – either by helping them get a ticket or by campaigning for them. Around 35 legislators remained neutral, a source said. Interestingly, a few legislators even wrote their own names, pushing their case forward to be made the CM.
Sources say that the newly elected MLAs were hesitant and did not want to comment in an open meeting, hence senior legislators suggested a secret ballot. Post the Congress Legislature party (CLP) meeting, the MLAs were asked to express their choice individually to the observers appointed by the Congress high command.
With the meeting ending with a one-line resolution passed by the 136 legislators authorising the Congress high command to take the decision, action has now shifted to Delhi. Both Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar have reportedly been asked to come to Delhi, where senior All India Congress Committee (AICC) leaders will have deliberations with them and broker a deal.
Multiple scenarios of what is being offered to both leaders have been doing the rounds. According to one section of Congress leaders, the consensus is to make Siddaramaiah the CM and offer either a term-sharing agreement to Shivakumar or make him the Deputy CM while allowing him to continue as the Congress state president. Another group vehemently contests this and says that Shivakumar is still very much the frontrunner. A third version asserts that there could be a third leader who could emerge as the consensus candidate and that could very well be AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge.
Even before the campaign started, it was public knowledge that both Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar were serious contenders for the job and both were seen hitting the ground hard and campaigning for the party and its candidates. While DK Shivakumar toured the southern parts of the state, Siddaramaiah was tasked with increasing the party’s prospects in north Karnataka. Both in terms of visibility in the party’s campaign and the efforts put in, both leaders were on an equal footing.