Siddaramaiah

Siddaramaiah (born 3 August 1947),[6] also referred to by his nickname Siddu,[lower-alpha 1] is an Indian politician who is serving as the 22nd Chief Minister of Karnataka since 2023.[7] He also held that position previously from 2013 to 2018, being only the second person to hold that office for a full five-year term. He belongs to the Indian National Congress and is presently the leader of the Congress Legislative Party. He represented the Varuna Assembly constituency from 2023, previously from 2008 to 2018, Badami Assembly constituency from 2018 to 2023, and from Chamundeshwari Assembly constituency from 2004 to 2007, 1994 to 1999 and from 1983 to 1989 in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. He served as the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka from 1996 to 1999 and from 2004 to 2005 while he was a member of the Janata Dal and Janata Dal (Secular). He also served as the Leader of the Opposition in Karnataka Legislative Assembly on two occasions from 2019 to 2023 and from 2009 to 2013.[8][9][10] Siddaramaiah was a member of various Janata Parivar factions for several years.[11][12][13]

Siddaramaiah
Siddaramaiah in 2016
22nd Chief Minister of Karnataka
Assumed office
20 May 2023
GovernorThawar Chand Gehlot
DeputyD. K. Shivakumar
Preceded byBasavaraj Bommai
In office
13 May 2013 – 17 May 2018
Governor
Preceded byJagadish Shettar
Succeeded byB. S. Yediyurappa
Member of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly
Assumed office
13 May 2023
Preceded byYathindra Siddaramaiah
ConstituencyVaruna
In office
17 May 2018 – 13 May 2023
Preceded byB B Chimmanakatti
Succeeded byBhimsen Chimmanakatti
ConstituencyBadami
In office
2008–2018
Preceded bySeat established
Succeeded byYathindra Siddaramaiah
ConstituencyVaruna
In office
2004–2007
Preceded byA. S. Guruswamy
Succeeded byM. Satyanarayana
ConstituencyChamundeshwari
In office
1994–1999
Preceded byM. Rajasekara Murthy
Succeeded byA. S. Guruswamy
ConstituencyChamundeshwari
In office
1983–1989
Preceded byD. Jayadevaraja Urs
Succeeded byM. Rajasekara Murthy
ConstituencyChamundeshwari
Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka
In office
28 May 2004 – 5 August 2005[1]
Chief MinisterDharam Singh
Preceded byHimself
Succeeded byM. P. Prakash
In office
16 May 1996 – 22 July 1999[2]
Chief MinisterJ. H. Patel
Preceded byJ. H. Patel
Succeeded byHimself
Leader of the Opposition
Karnataka Legislative Assembly
In office
9 October 2019 – 20 May 2023[3]
Preceded byB. S. Yediyurappa
Succeeded byVacant
In office
8 June 2009 – 12 May 2013
Preceded byMallikarjun Kharge
Succeeded byH. D. Kumaraswamy
Personal details
Born (1947-08-03) 3 August 1947[4][5]
Siddaramana Hundi, Kingdom of Mysore, British India
(present-day Karnataka, India)
Political partyIndian National Congress (2006–present)
Other political
affiliations
SpouseParvathi Siddaramaiah
Children
ResidenceAnugraha
Alma mater

Early life

He was born to Siddarame Gowda and Boramma in a remote village called Siddaramanahundi in Varuna Hobli near T. Narasipura of Mysore district in a farming family.[14] He had no formal schooling until he was ten but went on to do his B. Sc. and LL.B. from Mysore University.[15] He is the fourth among six siblings and he belongs to Kuruba Gowda community.[16]

Siddaramaiah was a junior under a lawyer, Chikkaboraiah, in Mysore and later taught law for some time.[17]

Personal life

Siddaramaiah is mononymous. Siddaramaiah is married to Parvathi and had two sons. His elder son, Rakesh, seen as his father's heir in politics, died of multiple organ failure in 2016 at the age of 38.[18] The surviving son, Dr.Yathindra, contested the 2018 Legislative Assembly elections and won from the seat of Varuna in Mysuru, formerly his father's seat, by over 45,000 votes.[19]

Siddaramaiah has stated on record that he is an atheist,[20] though he has more recently clarified his public stance on the subject: "Word has spread that I am an atheist, which I am not. I am spiritual -- I have participated in festivities as child. I have visited some of the popular pilgrimage centres. But I am definitely against superstition, as I view everything from science point of view".[21]

Political career

Siddaramaiah's political career began when Nanjunda Swamy, a lawyer in Mysore, spotted him at the district courts as a law graduate. He was asked to contest and was elected to the Mysore Taluka. He contested on a Bharatiya Lok Dal ticket from Chamundeshwari constituency and entered the 7th Karnataka Legislative Assembly in 1983. This was a surprise victory for all and it earned him a name and fame in the Old Mysore region.

Later he joined the ruling Janata Party and became the first president of the Kannada Surveillance Committee (Kannada Kavalu Samiti), set up to supervise the implementation of Kannada as an official language. During the mid-term polls in 1985, Siddaramaiah was re-elected from the same constituency and became Minister for Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services. In Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde's government, he handled diverse portfolios such as Sericulture, Animal Husbandry and Transport at different stages.[22]

He first suffered defeat in the 1989 Assembly elections, beaten by a veteran Congress leader, M. Rajasekara Murthy. Later in 1992, he was appointed Secretary General of Janata Dal, which H. D. Deve Gowda had also joined. He was elected again in the 1994 State Elections and became the Minister for Finance in the Janata Dal government headed by Deve Gowda. He was made Deputy Chief Minister when J. H. Patel became Chief Minister in 1996. He was sacked as Deputy Chief Minister and dropped from the Cabinet on 22 July 1999.[2] After the split in the Janata Dal, he joined the Janata Dal (Secular) faction of Deve Gowda and became the president of its state unit. However, he lost in the 1999 state elections. In 2004, when the Indian National Congress and JD (S) formed a coalition government with Dharam Singh as Chief Minister, he was again appointed Deputy Chief Minister.[23] He addressed ahinda samavesha in Hubballi, which had the huge public gathering. He even challenged Reddy brothers in the house when he was the leader of the opposition that he would come to Bellary through padayatra. It garnered attention of whole state and eventually Siddaramaiah came to power in 2013.[24]

Siddaramaiah celebrated his 75th birthday on 3 August 2022 in Davanagere and called it "Siddaramotsava", where more than 20 lakh followers of Siddaramaiah had attended the program.[25][26]

Indian National Congress

In 2005, after differences with H. D. Deve Gowda, Siddaramaiah was expelled from JD (S). He wanted to revive a regional party "ABPJD" in the state after quitting the JD (S), but he did not because regional parties formed earlier in Karnataka had not survived.[27] He subsequently garnered mass support from the backward classes and joined the Congress at a large public meeting held in Bangalore, in Sonia Gandhi's presence. He won the Chamundeshwari bypolls held in December 2006, by a margin of 257 votes against M. Shivabasappa of JD (S), despite a fierce campaign against him by Deve Gowda, Chief Minister Kumaraswamy and Deputy Chief Minister Yeddyurappa in the constituency.[23] In the 2008 state Assembly elections, he contested from Varuna Constituency and was re-elected for the fifth time.[28][29]

He won the 2013 election from the same constituency (Varuna) on 8 May 2013 and was reelected for the 7th time. He was elected as the leader of the Congress legislative party in the Karnataka assembly on 10 May 2013.[30] He had previously announced that the 2013 Assembly election would be his last election,[31] but in the 2018 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election, he left his safe Varuna seat for his son, and he himself went on to contest from two constituencies, i.e. Chamundeshwari and Badami, and faced stiff competition against GT Devegowda of JD (S) and B. Sriramulu of BJP respectively, both of which were new constituencies for him. He lost in Chamundeshwari, but won in Badami vidhan sabha seat beating BJP heavyweight Sriramulu with a narrow margin of 1,696 votes and he was reelected for the 8th time. Congress under his leadership then supported the Janata Dal (Secular) in forming the government in 2018 to keep BJP out of power. He was the chairman of coordination committee that coordinated the congress-JDS coalition govt under H. D Kumarswamy. After the resignation of 17 MLAs, leading to the downfall of the coalition government, Siddaramaiah took the leadership of the upcoming by-elections in Karnataka.

The by-polls were held on 5 December 2019 for the 15 assembly seats. Though Siddaramaiah expressed his confidence in winning 12 out of the 15 contested seats, Congress managed to win only 2 seats and the JDS winning none of it.[32] This was a major setback for his leadership and differences arose among his own party members questioning his leadership.[33] Thus Siddaramaiah resigned as the Leader of the CLP and the Leader of opposition of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly on 9 December.[34]

Chief Minister of Karnataka
Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah calling on the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi

First term (2013–2018)
Siddaramaiah in 2013

Siddaramaiah was elected as Chief Minister after Congress adopted a secret ballot to select the new chief minister.[35][36] He led the Indian National Congress to victory by achieving an absolute majority of 122/224 seats in the 2013 Legislative Assembly election.[37]

On 15 May 2018, he resigned from his position of the Chief minister of Karnataka, respecting the verdict of the 2018 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election.[38] He also became the first chief minister of Karnataka to serve full 5 years term in 40 years, and the second in the history of the southern state after Devaraj Urs.[39] He also holds the record of presenting state budget 13 times as a finance minister in Government of Karnataka. Despite allegations of mounting debt on state exchequer by the opposition, he is known for maintaining fiscal prudence within the ambit of Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act of the state.[40]

Second term (2023–present)
Siddaramaiah in 2023

After the Congress emerged victorious in the 2023 legislative assembly election, Siddaramaiah was again elected Chief Minister, and D. K. Shivakumar was appointed his deputy.[41] After the first cabinet meet, Siddaramaiah announced that all "5 guarantees" announced in the party's manifesto had been approved and would be brought into effect in the following cabinet meet.[42] He also insisted that the officers roll back his "zero-traffic" protocol to avoid traffic congestion problems for the public.[43] His council of ministers was named the following week and was reported that he would hold finance, cabinet affairs and all unallocated portfolios.[44]

His cabinet approved reverting changes by the previous BJP government in school textbooks, which included removing lessons on RSS founder K. B. Hedgewar and Hindutva figure Vinayak Damodar Savarkar,[45] launched a scheme providing free bus rides to women in the Karnataka state buses[46] and announced implementation of other four pre-poll guarantees in the state budget.

In July 2023, he tabled the state budget for the record 14th time in state's history. He increased taxes on liquor, beer, stamp duty and registration of properties, and certain vehicle categories to fund the above mentioned schemes.[47][48]

Challenges

In July 2023, the state witnessed series of killings which included an on-duty police constable crushed to death by a sand mafia truck,[49] Jain monk Nandhi Maharaj from Belgaum, a Hindu worker named Venugopal in T. Narasipur and a double murder of CEO and MD of a company in Bangalore.[50] This led to speculations on fragile law and order in the state, and the opposition BJP led protests and march to Raj Bhavan seeking CBI probe into these matters.[51][52]

Corruption allegations and controversies

The Karnataka Lokayukta has filed 61 corruption cases, out of which 11 were disposed as of 2019. Siddaramaiah has 50 cases pending against him in the Lokayukta.[53][54]

Electoral performance
Sl.No Year Election Constituency Party Votes Vote share Margin Result
1. 1983 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Chamundeshwari Bharatiya Lok Dal 26,614 43.33% 3,504 Won[55]
2. 1985 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Chamundeshwari Janata Party 33,725 43.45% 8,271 Won[55]
3. 1989 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Chamundeshwari Janata Dal 36,483 36.27% 6,409 Lost[55]
4. 1991 Lok Sabha Koppal Janata Dal 2,29,979 41.96% 11,197 Lost[56]
5. 1994 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Chamundeshwari Janata Dal 76,823 54.46% 32,155 Won[55]
6. 1999 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Chamundeshwari Janata Dal 50,907 30.66% 6,200 Lost[55]
7. 2004 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Chamundeshwari Janata Dal 90,727 43.43% 32,345 Won[55]
8. 2006
(by election)		 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Chamundeshwari Indian National Congress 1,15,512 47.24% 256 Won[57][58]
9. 2008 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Varuna Indian National Congress 71,908 50.23% 18,837 Won[59]
10. 2013 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Varuna Indian National Congress 84,385 52.53% 29,641 Won[59]
11. 2018 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Chamundeshwari Indian National Congress 85,283 37.69% 36,042 Lost[60]
12. 2018 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Badami Indian National Congress 67,599 41.24% 1,696 Won[61]
13. 2023 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Varuna Indian National Congress 1,19,430 60.09% 46,006 Won

Positions held
Sl no.Term of officePartyPosition
1.16 May 1996 – 22 July 1999Janata DalDeputy Chief Minister of Karnataka[2]
2.28 May 2004 – 5 August 2005Janata Dal (Secular)Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka[62]
3.13 May 2013 – 17 May 2018Indian National CongressChief Minister of Karnataka[63]
4.20 May 2023 – presentIndian National CongressChief Minister of Karnataka[7]

Other positions held

See also

Notes
  1. Sources calling the subject Siddu —"CM Siddu confident of winning in coming election – Mysuru Today". Retrieved 9 August 2021.
    —"Vishwanath backs Ibrahim, says many are not happy with CM Siddu". coastaldigest.com – The Trusted News Portal of India. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
    —Big Kannada push ahead of polls; CM Siddu appeases pro Kannada outfits, archived from the original on 21 December 2021, retrieved 9 August 2021
    —"Karnataka CM Siddu's 'Bhagya' budgets swell debt burden to Rs 2.86 lakh crore". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
    —"CM Siddu to Modi: Give Bharat Ratna to Siddaganga seer". Asianet News Network Pvt Ltd. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
    —shastri, vittal (6 May 2018). "Get famous, elect your next CM: Siddu to Badami". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
    —"Hegde was my political guide, not Deve Gowda, says CM Siddu". Star of Mysore. 22 February 2018. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
    —"UP BJP loses 3rd MLA to Covid – Mysuru Today". Retrieved 9 August 2021.
    —Kannada, TV9 (2 May 2021). "FMR CM Siddu: ಆರೋಗ್ಯ ಸಚಿವರಿಗೇ ಫೋನ್ ಮಾಡಿದ್ದೀನಿ ಆದ್ರೂ ರೆಮ್ಡಿಸಿವರ್ ಇಂಜೆಕ್ಷನ್ ಸಿಗಲಿಲ್ಲ". TV9 Kannada (in Kannada). Archived from the original on 9 August 2021. Retrieved 9 August 2021.

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