High Command, low stability, that’s Congress for you!

Raju Korti
The change of guard in Karnataka is less a political transition and more a ritualistic replay of the Congress party’s most enduring internal culture. In a party that governs barely a handful of states today, Karnataka stands out as one of its strongest bastions. Yet, paradoxically, it is here that the Congress seems most determined to remind itself, and the country, of its chronic inability to manage power without breeding dissent.

DKS (Instagram grab)

The exit of Siddaramaiah and the elevation of D. K. Shivakumar follow a script so familiar that it borders on the predictable. As murmurs of discontent grew louder within the state unit, the party did what it has done for decades. It dispatched observers, conducted the ritual of consultations, and ultimately deferred the decision to the high command, now embodied by Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge.

This top-down culture is not new. It has its roots in the era of Indira Gandhi and continued seamlessly under Sonia Gandhi. The faces have changed, but the instinct remains intact: centralise authority, manage factions, and impose a solution that is less about governance and more about containment.

What makes the current transition particularly perplexing is the absence of any compelling or transparent reason for Siddaramaiah’s removal. By most accounts, there was no immediate governance crisis, no electoral debacle, and no visible administrative collapse that warranted such a shift. Yet, the Congress has once again chosen to prioritise internal arithmetic over external accountability.

The proposed arrangement under Shivakumar only deepens this impression. The idea of appointing four Deputy Chief Ministers is not merely unusual, it is symptomatic. It signals a deeply factionalised power structure where leadership is not asserted but negotiated, not consolidated but distributed. Such an arrangement is less about governance efficiency and more about political appeasement, an attempt to placate competing power centres within the party.

India has seen similar experiments before. In 2019, Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy appointed five Deputy Chief Ministers in Andhra Pradesh, setting a record of sorts. States like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and Karnataka itself have periodically resorted to multiple Deputy CMs to balance caste equations and regional aspirations. But these are expedients, not solutions.

The more fundamental issue is constitutional. The post of Deputy Chief Minister does not exist in the Constitution of India. It carries no independent authority and is, in essence, a Cabinet Minister with a more ornamental designation. Financial powers remain with the Chief Minister, and all major decisions require his approval. In that sense, multiplying Deputy Chief Ministers does not multiply governance capacity. It merely multiplies political egos that need accommodation.

Siddaramaiah (Wikipedia)

The Karnataka reshuffle also underscores another recurring feature of Congress politics: dynastic continuity cloaked as organisational stability. The likely induction of Siddaramaiah’s son into the Cabinet is a telling signal. It suggests that while individuals may be replaced, their political legacy, and by extension their influence, must be preserved within the system.

Meanwhile, the choreography continues. Meetings in Delhi, consultations with central leadership, and the inevitable Congress Legislative Party meeting that will rubber-stamp what has already been decided elsewhere. Even the turbulence that diverted Siddaramaiah’s flight to Jaipur seems an apt metaphor for the party’s internal journey: unpredictable, circuitous, and ultimately controlled from afar.

At one level, this is politics as usual. At another, it is a revealing commentary on a party that has struggled to evolve beyond its centralised command structure. In an era where regional leadership and decentralised decision-making are increasingly seen as political strengths, the Congress continues to rely on a model that prioritises control over coherence.

Karnataka, once again, becomes a case study not in governance but in intra-party management. The faces at the top may have changed, but the system that produces these changes remains resolutely the same.

And that, perhaps, is the Congress party’s greatest paradox. Even when it changes, it does not.