Congress party is facing a strange issue. While it faces the issue of lack of strong local leaders in several states, it faces the issue of too many strong leaders in Karnataka. Moreover, they are covering wide social base and silently fighting among themselves for the top chair. This triggers a debate whether too many CM aspirants hampering the prospects of Karnataka Congress. Details as follows.
Opinion polls predict Congress win:
Upcoming elections for the legislative assembly of the stae of Karnataka are scheduled on 10th May and the results will be out by 13th May. Most of the opinion polls stated that the ruling BJP facing huge wave of anti incumbency and Congress party has more chances to win the 2023 elections. On average, most of the opinion polls predict 100-120 seats for congress, 60-80 seats for BJP and 20-30 seats for JDS. Karnataka has 224 seats and any party getting 113 seats will form the government. Though most of the surveys predict that Congress will be the single largest party, almost all of them are mum on the question whether Congress can come into power without the support of JDS.
Too many CM aspirants in Congress:
At this crucial juncture, many leaders started projecting themselves as CM candidates.
Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar are the top two contestants for the CM post. Siddaramaiah was CM earlier and he is aspiring for a second term. Congress trouble shooter DK Shivakumar is one of the richest man in the country and he also says that after SM Krishna, no one from Vokkaliga caste became CM of Karnataka. He tacitly expressed his desire for the top chair through these statements. Another top contender is G Parameshwara, the prominent Dalit leader in the state. He served as a deputy CM during the Congress-]DS coalition government. He was also the president of KPCC for eight years. He says caste is not the main criteria for selecting the CM candidate. The next one in the race is former minister M B Patil, who hails from Lingayat community. He also claims his candidature for CM post and reminds that Lingayats are the huge chunk of the vote base of the state. In addition to this, some senior leaders of the BJP, including a former Chief Minister and a former deputy CM, joined Congress recently and aspire for the CM post. By realizing that the situation can go out of the hands anytime,Congess high command stepped in and asked leaders to stop discussing CM names.
As of now, it looks like the competition is between Siddaramaiah and Shiva Kumar but anything can happen in Congress.However, this factionalism in the Congress party and multiple CM aspirants fighting each other remain the biggest challenges to the Congress party at this moment.
