Siddaramaiah's announcement causes flutters in congress
Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said he will not fight electoral elections anymore. He had said the same when he was the Chief Minister as well. At a time when Siddaramaiah seemed inevitable to Congress demand for dalit Chief Minister was created.
The demand was created to unseat Siddaramaiah and not to make a dalit Chief Minister of the state.
Native Congress when fired so long as Siddaramaiah was in the party they would never get a chance to become the chief minister. To dissuade the fears of native congressmen, siddaramaiah had then told he would not fight elections anymore.
With this, the Parmeshwar gang was happy that the he can become a chief minister next time.
Owing to his duty towards people he was forced to fight Vidhan Sabha elections last time.
If Congress had achieved majority, Siddaramaiah's becoming of the CM second time over was most certain. Hence in order to avoid working under him again, native Congressis ensured he lost the Chamundeshwari seat. More than his opponent's pluses, anti-Siddaramaiah gang worked to make sure he lost. However, he won with a small margin in Badami, his second seat. If he had lost that, Siddaramaiah would have been a closed chapter in Congress.
This time again, Siddaramaiah has said he won't contest elections anymore. This time the announcement has come after considering changing political scenario and realities. This is a message to most leaders in his party and also to his opponents. He has made his role clear in the coming days in a rather delicate manner. He still nurses some anger about leaders who ensured his failure in Congress during last polls.
He has even made his inevitability clear when his party and JDS came together to form coalition government.
By now, other leaders also know that Siddaramaiah's presence is inevitable to Congress. Looks like former CM Siddaramaiah has decided to quit full time politics after teaching a good lesson to people who worked to defeat him. So his announcement of not contesting elections also means he'd stay away from the fighting grounds for a while. He now wants to play the king maker. So DKS gang can rely on him without any hesitation now. Because now Siddaramaiah is in a mindset that if he doesn't become the CM, that's fine. But he will not let someone else, especially his opponent to become one.
He did not say he'd stay out of politics either. DKS recently said Cong lost because the party supported the Lingayat issue in a rather irresponsible manner. In a way, this statement has Siddaramaiah as target. This statement makes the Lingayat issue some kind of a political strategy. Congress had lost miserably many a times even when the party never went close to the Lingayat issue. Internal conflicts caused the failure of Congress this time over. Hindutva wave also caused enough damage. BJP spent money like water in the elections rendering Congress helpless. Leaders like D.K. Shivakumar who hardly know anything about Lingayat dharma or about Basavanna, cause more damage to Congress.
The party has already earned the wrath of Veerashaivas on Lingayat issue. Most of the Veerashaivas are followers of RSS or BJP. Now even Lingayats will probably look at Congress with suspicion over this. Lingayat leaders now understand that their fight has to be a separate one and this has to be fought outside the citadel of Congress. Siddaramaiah knows the history of this land.
Is political journey is free from money, muscle power and rowdyism. His space is secure in the history of Karnataka respective of his victory or loss.
He can give fresh lease of life to value based politics. Hence his decision to not contest electoral elections must give him more free space to work in the Congress.
He must now concentrate on creating new generation of leaders for the state. This would help both the party and the state as well. Congress high command must focus on using his experience and statesmanship for its growth and the future of the party in the state.
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NDA sweeps bypolls to four assembly segments in Bihar
Patna (PTI): The ruling NDA in Bihar on Saturday swept the bypolls to four assembly segments, retaining Imamganj and wresting from the INDIA bloc Tarari, Ramgarh and Belaganj, receiving a boost ahead of the assembly elections due next year.
Candidates of the Jan Suraaj, floated recently by former political strategist Prashant Kishor with much fanfare, lost deposits in all but one seat, in a clear indication that the fledgling party, despite claims of taking the political landscape in the state by storm, needs to cover much ground.
The biggest setback for the INDIA bloc, helmed by the RJD, came in Belaganj, a seat the party had been winning since its inception in the 1990s, but this time lost to the JD(U) headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the arch-rival of its founding president Lalu Prasad.
The JD(U) candidate Manorama Devi, a former MLC, defeated by a margin of more than 21,000 votes RJD’s Vishwanath Kumar Singh who made his debut from a seat that fell vacant upon election to Lok Sabha of his father Surendra Prasad Yadav, a multiple term MLA.
The margin of victory was greater than the 17,285 votes polled by Mohd Amjad of Jan Suraaj, whom the RJD may have liked to blame for its defeat by causing a split in Muslim votes.
JD(U) national spokesman Rajiv Ranjan Prasad said, "The people of Bihar deserve kudos for rejecting the negativity of the opposition and reposing their trust in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Under his leadership, the NDA will win more than 200 seats of the 243-strong assembly in 2025."
The RJD also suffered an embarrassing defeat in Ramgarh, where Prashant Kishor’s prediction of the party “finishing third or fourth” came true. The forecast had caused Sudhakar Singh, son of state RJD president Jagadanand Singh, the MP from Buxar who had won the assembly seat in 2020, to threaten that Jan Suraaj cadres in the constituency will be “beaten up with sticks”.
Singh’s younger brother Ajit finished a distant third after BJP winner Ashok Kumar Singh, a former MLA, and Satish Kumar Singh Yadav who fought on a ticket of the BSP, which has little foothold in Bihar.
Jan Suraaj, though, was hardly a factor in Ramgarh, where its candidate Sushil Kumar Singh polled less than four per cent votes.
The BJP also pulled off a stunning victory in Tarari, which falls under the Arrah Lok Sabha seat, currently represented by CPI(ML)’s Sudama Prasad, who had won the assembly segment for two consecutive terms.
CPI(ML) candidate Raju Yadav lost, by a margin of a little over 10,000 votes, to BJP debutant Vishal Prashant, better known as the son of local strongman Sunil Pandey, who was formerly with the JD(U) and had joined the saffron party a few months ago.
Jan Suraaj had initially announced that it was fielding a former Vice Chief of the Army in Tarari but later disclosed that he could not contest because of technical reasons. Its candidate Kiran Singh got less than four per cent votes.
The most respectable performance from Jan Suraaj came in the reserved Imamganj seat where its candidate Jitendra Paswan stood third, polling well over 20 per cent votes.
The seat, however, went to Deepa Kumari, daughter-in-law of Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, who defeated RJD’s Raushan Kumar by a slender margin of less than 6,000 votes.
Manjhi, who heads the Hindustani Awam Morcha, vacated Imamganj earlier this year upon getting elected to Lok Sabha from Gaya.
With the exception of Ashok Singh in Ramgarh, the winners in all the seats shall be making their debut in the state assembly.
