Outlasting Urs: When Longevity Became the Only Achievement

 

By Sharan Kumar

 

Siddaramaiah has finally done it. He has overtaken Devaraj Urs as Karnataka’s longest-serving Chief Minister. History has been updated. Context, unfortunately, has not.

 

Beyond the stopwatch, the comparison collapses like cheap scaffolding.

 

Devaraj Urs was a towering reformist, a leader with aura, conviction and a genuine legacy of social transformation. He reshaped Karnataka’s political landscape, uplifted marginalised communities and carried himself with a natural authority that did not need daily reminders. His politics had spine, substance and style.

 

Siddaramaiah, by contrast, has mastered the fine art of survival. His ascent to the top office reads less like a movement and more like a manual on political manoeuvring. Projected as a tall backward-class leader, he has ensured with remarkable consistency that no other leader from his own Kuruba community ever grows tall enough to cast a shadow. Credit, after all, must remain a single-owner enterprise.

 

Known for his fondness for the finer things in life, Siddaramaiah’s second innings as Chief Minister has been marked by a visible softening of principles and a hardening of tolerance towards corruption, especially within his inner circle. Refinement never quite made it to the cabinet agenda. Coarse language, public abuse and taking people for granted became standard accessories of power. Fairness too was selectively applied, with perceived “upper classes” often discovering that equality was strictly optional.

 

Governance, meanwhile, took a back seat to occupancy. Siddaramaiah’s primary administrative achievement appears to be not vacating the chair. That D K Shivakumar, who did much of the organisational heavy lifting to bring Congress back to power, is frustrated is hardly surprising. A Chief Minister guarding his seat and a party strongman acting like a de facto CM is not a power-sharing model; it is a slow administrative meltdown, with corruption reaching levels that no audit can comfortably explain.

 

The much-advertised guarantee schemes, generously rolled out without a matching revenue roadmap, have left the state’s finances gasping for breath. Development projects are conspicuous by their absence, while enthusiasm for monetising power is visible across departments. Direction is missing, but collection efficiency is excellent.

 

Siddaramaiah’s political strategy has often relied on dividing communities, particularly within the Hindu fold, to retain control. His failed attempt to split the Lingayat community into a separate religion was perhaps one of the rare moments when the script did not cooperate. Ironically, despite hailing from the Kuruba community, he has never promoted a successor from within it. Leadership, in his worldview, is strictly non-transferable.

 

Luck, however, has smiled generously. After enjoying power under H D Deve Gowda as Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister, Siddaramaiah was unceremoniously shown the door by the Janata Dal. He promptly reinvented himself in the Congress, navigating factions with surgical precision and presenting himself as a larger-than-life AHINDA mascot. When Congress lost power after his five-year reign, he ensured the coalition government failed, retained the Opposition Leader’s post and waited patiently for circumstances to improve.

 

Those circumstances arrived courtesy of an underwhelming BJP administration led by Basavaraj Bommai, whose ineptitude effectively handed the state back to Congress. After a bitter internal battle, Siddaramaiah reclaimed the chair, not so much to govern as to complete the record.

 

At 77, with Karnataka staring at a deep financial crisis, Siddaramaiah appears curiously unconcerned. Legacy planning seems optional when future electoral returns are no longer a personal ambition. Vindictiveness, however, remains a dependable constant. While he holds the record for presenting the highest number of budgets and can legitimately claim credit for a few positives, his second innings has been distinctly chequered. There is a visible decline in leadership quality, with intent shifting away from governance towards mere political survival.

 

So yes, the record books now say Siddaramaiah stayed longer than Devaraj Urs. But history is not measured only in days and months. It also counts vision, dignity, reform and impact. On that scoreboard, the stopwatch tells a flattering story, while the substance tells a rather uncomfortable truth.