"She Sacrificed Power": DK Shivakumar's Sonia Gandhi Note In Karnataka Row

The Siddaramaiah-DK Shivakumar tug-of-war over the Karnataka Chief Minister's post – a headache the Congress could do without after another bruising year of electoral defeats – flared up again Friday evening, with DKS' unsubtle reference to Sonia Gandhi 'sacrificing power'.

At a government event in Bengaluru DKS spoke about the former Congress boss having given up the chance to become Prime Minister in 2004 after the party-led United Progressive Alliance won the Lok Sabha election. Instead she elevated Manmohan Singh, an economist par excellence who served as the Reserve Bank Governor and then Finance Minister, DKS said.

"Sonia Gandhi was the Congress President for 20 years. She also sacrificed power… Abdul Kalam (then the President of India) called her to become the next Prime Minister but she refused and, instead, suggested Manmohan Singh as someone who could develop the country," he said.

The reference was unmissable.

Congress lawmakers backing DKS to replace Siddaramaiah as Chief Minister of Karnataka have demanded the latter honour a 'deal' struck after the 2023 Assembly election, a 'deal' made because both men wanted the top job and which said each would have a 2.5-year reign.

That halfway mark came and went last week with no sign of Siddaramaiah standing down or the party enforcing any 'deal'. And, over the past week, Shivakumar and his supporters have reminded the Chief Minister and his camp, and the Congress leadership, to honour the accord.

Those reminders include another not-so-cryptic jab by DKS – about 'word power being world power… which means that for us to keep our promise is one of the biggest powers in the world'.

Thus far Siddaramaiah has not yielded to pressure, which includes a group of DKS' supporters turning up in Delhi to petition party boss Mallikarjun Kharge directly. But he has admitted to "confusion" in the ranks and called on the party's senior leadership to "put a full stop" to it.

And the Chief Minister then responded directly to his rival's 'word power' jab; a post on X this morning declared "'word' is not 'power' unless it betters the world for the people…"