Shivakumar’s elevation as Karnataka CM poses existential challenge for JD(S)

The change of guard in Karnataka’s Congress-led government is emerging as an existential challenge for the Janata Dal (Secular), with some dramatic decisions, including a possible return to full-time State politics by Union Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, being contemplated by the party leadership.

For the JD(S), D.K. Shivakumar’s elevation is seen as politically disadvantageous for Mr. Kumaraswamy, as both leaders belong to the Vokkaliga community and have been engaged in a decades-long contest for influence over the community, especially in the Old Mysore region of the State.

Minority voters, who were earlier part of the JD(S) and Congress vote bank, later shifted largely to the Congress under Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s AHINDA combination of backward classes, minorities and Dalits, along with the JD(S)’s move to join the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

This gradual consolidation of the JD(S) vote base by the Congress comes at a time when Assembly elections in Karnataka are due in 2028.

Party sources said Mr. Kumaraswamy may, during the next reshuffle of the Union Council of Ministers, decide to forgo his ministerial berth in favour of his brother-in-law and Lok Sabha MP C.N. Manjunath, who won the Bangalore Rural seat on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket in 2024.

“The next Assembly elections will be an existential one anyway for the JD(S), but with D.K. Shivakumar as Chief Minister, a Vokkaliga after a long time, the challenge is greater. Kumaranna [H.D. Kumaraswamy] may yield his ministerial berth to Dr. C.N. Manjunath and return to State politics,” a senior source in the party said.

Among the issues that Mr. Kumaraswamy and his father, former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, want to foreground locally is the proposed large-scale land acquisition for the Greater Bengaluru Integrated Township near Bidadi in outer Bengaluru and Ramanagara, considered a stronghold of the Gowda family.

The Siddaramaiah Cabinet had approved the acquisition of 7,481 acres spanning nine villages, much of the land belonging to small farmers. According to some assessments, more than 8,600 farmers owning less than an acre fall within the proposed acquisition area, while 1,900 own just over an acre. Only one landowner each reportedly owns between 10 and 20 acres, and between 20 and 30 acres in the area.

Mr. Deve Gowda has already written to Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi on the issue.

It is increasingly clear that the political contest within the Congress between Mr. Siddaramaiah and Mr. Shivakumar is beginning to reshape the wider political landscape in Karnataka, with implications for rival parties such as the JD(S).