Moments after resigning as chief minister, Siddaramaiah declared he would remain in active politics and that he would fight communal forces till his last breath, in character with how he has sought to position himself in Karnataka’s politics for two decades now.
Though he became Finance Minister and deputy chief minister back in 1996, he inched closer to becoming chief minister in 2009 when he became Leader of Opposition to the first-ever BJP government in the State led by B.S. Yediyurappa. Since then, he has come to define the progressive pole of the State’s politics against the rise of Hindutva.
Mr. Siddaramaiah has been a trenchant critic of Hindutva, even when many of his party colleagues haven’t lent their voice to his critique. For instance, he was the first leader to condemn a ban on hijab in classrooms in 2022, even as many others chose not to comment. He is also probably the only leader, besides a few others like Priyank Kharge, who speaks the language of ideological opposition to Sangh Parivar, accusing them of trying to impose Manusmriti and Chatruvarna, Brahminism in the name of Hindutva. This often made him the target of the troll army, which has given epithets like ‘Sidramulla Khan’. For instance, Mr. Siddaramaiah reportedly eating fish before going to a temple was magnified into a huge controversy. He countered it by Brahminical argument against non-vegetarianism. The BJP also painted most of his recent budgets as exercises in ‘minority appeasement’ and as ‘anti-Hindu’.
Read More : Siddaramaiah: Karnataka’s man of the moment
He has often tried to fight this by drawing a distinction between ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Hinduism’, and that he believes in the latter as a faith. In the run-up to the 2023 Assembly polls, he went to temples, sported vermillion, and said his name had ‘Rama’ in it. He often says he follows the Hindutva of Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda.
Consistent, not strategic
Even so, many progressive individuals and groups are disappointed with Siddaramaiah on fighting communal forces, particularly in the second term. While he withdrew the Cow Slaughter Bill, 2010, brought by BJP and started celebrating Tipu Jayanti, a response to communalisation of Tipu Sultan, in his first term, he did not similarly roll back The Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Act, 2020. The Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Act, 2021, dubbed ‘anti-conversion law’, was not rolled back either, despite it being a manifesto promise. The hijab ban order was rolled back just days before a Muslim convention that was planned ‘to hold Congress to account’ in April, three years after Siddaramaiah became chief minister in May 2023.
A. Narayana, a faculty at School of Development, Azim Premji University, said while it is true that Mr. Siddaramaiah has been a vocal critic of ‘communal politics’, he did not have any concrete creative programme to counter it. “He was consistent, but not strategic. Communalisation of Karnataka politics happened right under his nose. He hasn’t been able to stop it. He is a mass leader with a great pull, a secular leader who happens to be in Congress, therefore weakening opposition BJP. Like he is able to convince people on social justice, he hasn’t been able to do so against communalism,” he said.
However, senior journalist Dinesh Amin Mattu, former media advisor to Mr. Siddaramaiah when he was chief minister from 2013 to 2018, argued the very fact that he was the biggest target of BJP and RSS was proof that he was an effective ideological foe. “What he could do as an individual, he has always done. But some decisions are to be taken collectively by the cabinet, where there have been certain setbacks,” he argued.
A new era
How exactly will Mr. Siddaramaiah resigning as chief minister impact this brand of socialist, progressive politics is a question weighing of the minds of many.
D. K. Shivakumar, tipped off to be the new chief minister, is not known to take the Sangh Parivar head-on in the ideological language of Mr. Siddaramaiah, even as he has often called Muslims his ‘brothers’, and been trolled by the Hindutva ecosystem for it.
In the days to come, Priyank Kharge, who has been consistently questioning the RSS, is expected to emerge as the main voice to articulate the ideological argument against Hindutva in the new dispensation.
Published – May 29, 2026 04:19 pm IST
