A little more than 12-14 months ago, everything that could go wrong for Siddaramaiah after becoming the Chief Minister of Karnataka was going wrong. Inertia had set into his administration, with no visible development works being started or announced. There were a spate of suicides and alleged killings of senior police officers like D K Ravi that had led to a massive public anger against the state government. Old Congressmen in the state were upset for long that a relative newcomer to the party had become the Chief Minister while they were sidelined. Repeated drought owing to failed monsoons and the lack of an efficient response by the state government had led the farmer community to commit suicides at a rate higher than most other states in the country. Although he had publicly claimed in the Assembly that he had joined Congress with the sole purpose of becoming the Chief Minister (Deve Gowda wouldn’t allow Siddaramaiah to surpass his own son H D Kumaraswamy in holding the reins of the state although Siddaramaiah was the Deputy CM twice earlier), he had also indicated that this was his last term and that he wouldn’t be fighting another election. Added to this, his son Rakesh died in Belgium owing to a liver complication leading to Siddaramaiah becoming a distraught individual. Congress as a party was on the decline all around the country and many felt that the next state level elections were just a formality to end Congress reign in the state.

What a difference can one year make. Things have definitely changed for the better for Siddaramaiah ever since. A long-awaited cabinet reshuffle proved to be a blessing in disguise for him. With the approval of the Congress high command, Siddaramaiah dropped a few senior ministers rather unceremoniously and inducted a few others who were trying to get into the cabinet ever since the government was formed in 2013. This led to massive resentment by the dropped ministers resulting in them indulging in ugly spats with Siddaramaiah. One such minister Srinivas Prasad even resigned his MLA seat (Nanjanagudu constituency), joined BJP and fought the by-election. This turned out to be a bad decision after all for Prasad. Historically, BJP has been weak in the Old Mysore region (Nanjanagudu belongs to this region). Although BJP managed to increase its vote share and put up a credible fight, Congress wrested the seat by pulling the former JD(S) candidate into Congress and making him victorious. Prasad, distraught at this loss has now declared that he will retire from electoral politics. This has in turn silenced the other unhappy ministers who had dropped and they are now forced to postpone their plans to either revolt against the CM or to switch parties. It also needs to be mentioned that this by-election to Nanjanagudu constituency (in addition to Gundlupet constituency where a minister’s death had resulted in a by-election) happened amidst the furor of demonetization and the associated angst among the general public. However, there was no shortage of cash and liquor meant for distribution to the electorate being seized during this period. Allegations of buying voters didn’t matter much to the Congress since they saw it as a prestige issue to win both these constituencies. (Incidentally, both these constituencies are very close to Siddaramaiah’s own constituency). Despite the state reeling under severe drought, the entire gamut of cabinet ministers were seen in these constituencies canvassing for the candidates for almost 45 days without regard for routine administration.

This win seems to have done wonders to the Chief Minister’s confidence. A man who was willing to hang up his boots has now claimed more than once that he will be the Chief Minister even beyond 2018, implying that Congress will win the elections. Added to this has been his near arrogance where he openly chides B S Yeddyurappa and H D Kumaraswamy taunting them that they can become Chief Minister only in their dreams.

Another reason for Siddaramaiah’s belligerence has been his ability to keep his flock of voters intact. Siddaramaiah rode on the wave of Ahinda movement (acronym for A – alpasankhyaata / minority, hin – hinduLida / backward, da – dalita / dalit) and has largely been successful in keeping them appeased. His large number of socialist schemes have specifically targeted these sections of society. Some noteworthy are ‘Bus Pass Bhagya’ scheme where SC/ST students in Bengaluru were to be given bus passes free of cost and ‘Shaadi Bhagya’ scheme were Muslim girls about to get married were to be given a fixed sum of money. As much as the BJP and other opposition parties have cried hoarse, this hasn’t affected much on the ground.

Every Chief Minister is well within his rights to alleviate the downtrodden sections of the society and Siddaramaiah can claim just as much. However, the miracle begins to show when you see how cunningly he has been attacking the opposition and defeating them in their own game. JD(S) on account of being a regional party always tried to showcase itself as the only alternative to safeguard the interests of the state be it  language, river water, border, etc. Congress’ planned attack on ‘imposition of Hindi’ in Bengaluru’s recently completed ‘Namma Metro’ Phase I pulled the rug from under both the BJP and JD(S). While the first 3-4 days after the inauguration of Namma Metro by President Pranab Mukherjee, saw a huge number of tweets by rather innocuous tweeps praising and congratulating Siddaramaiah and K J George (Bengaluru in-charge minister) helping them to gain goodwill, then came the controversy.

The protestors protested the ‘unnecessary Hindi nameplates’ at the Metro stations. They were successful in escaping from answering why did they not cry hoarse when Hindi boards were used in the partially opened Namma Metro routes earlier. And the Congress ministers like Dinesh Gundu Rao too were quick to latch on to this sentiment and publicly prevail upon Siddaramaiah to ask the Center to remove these Hindi nameplates in the Metro stations. BJP on account of supporting the three-language policy has lost out on the support of these groups who are now thanking the Chief Minister for standing by the state on this emotive issue. In fact these groups were equally supportive of Congress and JD(S) earlier and this one single move might help Siddaramaiah to bring them all to support Congress in the coming election.

The issue of a state flag too has had a similar planning and execution. Siddaramaiah has once again harmlessly set up a committee of ministers and Kannada writers to determine whether Karnataka needs a state flag and if so, can the existing flag of yellow (haldi) and red (kumkum) be used as one. This issue too has managed to divide the population almost equally. While some claim that there is no harm if Karnataka decides to wave its own legally accepted flag under the national flag (the author takes great pride in saying that he too has unfurled the Kannada flag with equal fervor as any other “Kannada well-wisher” on the street) others point out that such an act will actually amount to disrespect to the national flag. Siddaramaiah on his part is trying to take advantage of a constitutional provision that merely states that no flag should fly higher or equal to the national flag without explicitly rejecting flags for states.

As much as the earlier issues showcase how Siddaramaiah has been able to create controversies out of nothing, the next issue explains how he has latched onto a 4-decades old issue of according Lingayats the status of a separate religion for his political gains. Lingayats are basically the followers of 12^th century reformist Basavanna who spoke about social justice, women empowerment and abolition of caste system and many other such relevant issues. Lingayats are the largest voter base in Karnataka and have historically voted en masse for BJP. Their dominance in North Karnataka makes it an impregnable fortress for the BJP. While heads of some Lingayat mathas had always asked for the status of a separate religion, there were others who had equally rejected the proposal. With the Chief Minister of the state openly backing this claim, the issue has again come to the forefront of the state politics and might end up in Lingayat vote base getting split along the lines of separate religion. This is typical ‘divide-and-conquer’ power play being played by the Chief Minister and he knows it as much. While Lingayats are considered to be upper caste, such an offer might force some of the Lingayat electorate to rethink and favor a separate religion in order to get reservation benefits.

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For him though, an issue in every region of the state having the ability to divide the section of society has enough potential to get him those extra votes and deprive the opposition of their assured vote base. Unlike the recent state elections witnessed around the country, where BJP and Amit Shah would set the agenda and the Congress was forced to react, Karnataka has become one state where the sitting Congress Chief Minister has managed to set the agenda on his terms and has surely managed to establish a big lead with less than a year left before the elections.

As much as this might seem innocuous, Siddaramaiah who is generally media shy appeared in one of the episodes of a popular weekend Kannada TV program “Weekend with Ramesh” hosted by popular actor Ramesh. Ramesh invites ‘achievers’ from different spheres of life and talks about their life, their upbringing and how they succeeded in achieving whatever they have. Siddaramaiah got a huge platform to showcase his concern for the downtrodden sections of the society and also managed to showcase himself as a true socialist leader.

Make no mistake, Siddaramaiah is a true blue Socialist and will remain so for the rest of his life. His parameters for the development of his state lean more towards social empowerment, equitable distribution of resources, reducing the gap between the haves and have-nots. Parameters that others consider important like job creation, fiscal improvement, etc. do not rank so high in Siddaramaiah’s list.

During the state budget, Siddaramaiah – who is also the finance minister - announced the setting up of low-cost “Indira Canteens” in every ward in Bengaluru. This will be similar to the Amma Canteens seen in Tamil Nadu. With one eye on the elections, if everything goes as per his plan, Bengaluru will be Siddaramaiah’s icing on the cake. With 28 seats out of a total of 224, Bengaluru is a rich haul for any political party. And to snatch it away from the BJP (which has traditionally managed to bag more than 50% of seats from Bengaluru) along the way to a victory, will be just what the doctor ordered for Siddaramaiah.

With so much going in his favor, there are rumors that Siddaramaiah might even call for early elections. That will be a death blow for JD(S) which is grossly underprepared to fight and might also relinquish the perennially in-fighting BJP to a perennial opposition party. Whether Siddaramaiah chooses to take this path is something that only he can answer.

For now though, the agenda has been set. The man in power has decided the rules of the game and he has already taken a sizeable lead. It is for the opposition to react. Will Amit Shah, Narendra Modi and B S Yeddyurappa match him and eventually overpower him or will Deve Gowda and the ever wily H D Kumaraswamy trump him is what matters the most when the people vote. For now though, it’s game on!