Addressing a public event in Gujarat’s Surat on June 5, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Karnataka saw a change of the CM due to “growing public resentment” against the Congress government.While anti-incumbency fears forced the Congress high comamand’s hand to opt for a change of the guard on June 3, two years before the next state Assembly polls, there also seemed to be other reasons behind its move to replace Siddaramaiah, 78, with D K Shivakumar, 64, as the CM. Here is a look at 10 such factors.Power sharing dealAdvertisementOne of the primary factors for the Congress leadership’s decision to ask Siddaramaiah to step down was their unofficial agreement on power sharing with Shivakumar, which was made after the party’s resounding win in the May 2023 elections under their joint leadership, when the party bagged 135 of the state’s 224 seats.Bid to offset anti-incumbencyThe Karnataka electorate has traditionally voted out the incumbent parties at the end of every five-year cycle. The Congress expects that the ambitious Shivakumar, known for his formidable organisational skills, who aspires to play the chief ministerial innings for a long time, will rise to help the party buck the anti-incumbency trend and clinch its second term.Read | Why Congress ups ante in Karnataka, bets big on DKS as Siddaramaiah remains in the game“Shivakumar is clearly looking at being in power for a long time. His visits to the homes of the state’s tallest leaders – former PM H D Deve Gowda (JD-S chief and Vokkaliga heavyweight) and B S Yediyurappa (BJP veteran and Lingayat stalwart) – before being sworn in as the CM are indications of his long term intent,” a senior state bureaucrat said.AdvertisementOn his part, CM Shivakumar said in his home turf, Kanakapura, Sunday: “Our lives are not permanent. It is the legacy we leave behind that will be permanent. Should I be CM for just two years? With your blessings we must win again in 2028. Let us govern well and leave behind a legacy.”Caste equationsOne of the reasons that no party – the Congress, BJP or JD-S – has been re-elected to power in Karnataka has been the realignment of caste equations every five years against the incumbent by power-wielding groups – Vokkaligas, Lingayats or OBCs.Also Read | The myth of Siddaramaiah and the reality of D K ShivakumarThe Congress believes that it needs the support of one of the key dominant communities – Vokkaligas (aligned with JD-S) or Lingayats (aligned with BJP) – along with its own core base of OBC, Dalit and minority voters to win an election.The replacement of a popular OBC leader like Siddaramaiah, who has also sway over Dalit and minority voters, by Vokkaliga leader Shivakumar is seen as a Congress bid to club the support of a dominant group with its traditional OBC-Dalit-minority base, which has consistently delivered at least 35% votes to it. The party hopes that its core base will hold despite Siddaramaiah’s exit. “It is the Congress itself which attracts the OBC, Dalit and minority votes and not any individual leader,” a senior Congress leader said.The JD-S’s alliance with the BJP may also help the Congress retain the support of minorities while cutting into the former’s Vokkaliga base.The BJP attempted a generational change within its Lingayat base by replacing Yediyurappa with a younger leader Basavaraj Bommai as the CM midway during its 2019-2023 term, but the move boomeranged with Lingayats largely backing the Congress candidates in the 2023 polls.Message to Congress cadreBy elevating Shivakumar, a staunch loyalist of the Congress and the Gandhi family, as the CM, the Congress has sent out a signal to its workers in the state and across the country that loyalty and dedication will eventually yield results.Siddaramaiah’s continuance as the CM could have affected the Congress cadre’s morale, especially given the point that he only joined the party in 2006 after leaving the JD-S, a Congress observer said. “While Siddaramaiah, like Yediyurappa or Deve Gowda, is a mass leader who uses community networks to garner a critical mass of votes, Shivakumar is an organisational man. He primarily garners votes through the Congress workers. The move to appoint Shivakumar as CM will galvanise party workers.”Siddaramaiah’s loss of controlShivakumar’s persistent claims to the CM’s chair led to Siddaramaiah increasingly losing his grip on administration. There was a constant sense among state politicians and bureaucrats that he would be in power only for a short period despite his efforts to complete his full term.Also, the powers for supervision of several key ministries did not vest with Siddaramaiah but with Shivakumar, leading to the CM’s lack of control over key sectors like Bengaluru development, irrigation and water resources.A hamstrung CM, lack of tight administrative control, and apprehensions about short ministerial tenures also led to widespread corruption.“The second Siddaramaiah term was not as effective in terms of administration as the first (2013-18) when he had almost total control. In the second term there was some control initially, but later corruption became worse than it was under the previous BJP government,” a senior bureaucrat said.Weakened CMOThe current term of Siddaramaiah also saw a weakened Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) where multiple forces began to exercise powers – ranging from the CM’s family members to his close associates – leading to the exit of key officials or advisors from it.The “interference” from a member of the CM’s family allegedly extended to postings in all departments, which rankled several ministers who reportedly raised the issue with the Congress high command, sources said.Faltering KPCCAmid the power tussle between its two top leaders, the state Congress also struggled to strengthen the organisation. With Shivakumar, who was then Deputy CM, refusing to give up the state president’s post – which he held from 2020 – until his appointment as the CM, nor allowing the broadening of the caste base at the helm with the induction of more Deputy CMs, the Congress had been caught in a double bind.The change of the CM also enabled the Congress to bring in a new Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief in the form of a strong party loyalist with OBC credentials, B K Hariprasad, to act as a counterweight to Shivakumar’s politics of soft Hindutva, business orientation and centralisation of power.Fears of internal sabotageThe Davangere South Assembly bypoll was held on April 9 after the demise of the Veerashaiva Lingayat Mahasabha president and Congress MLA Shamanur Shivashankarappa.With Muslims accounting for nearly 30% voters in the constituency, there were competing demands for the Congress ticket from the influential Shivashankarappa family – which wanted to field his grandson Samarth Mallikarjun, son of Congress minister S S Mallikarjun – as well as local Muslim party leaders.The Congress chose to give the bypoll ticket to Samarth in light of his family’s long association with the party, and its influence in the Lingayat affairs.The Muslim group also pushed for its claim on the ticket. The Congress’s key Muslim faces like minister Zameer Ahmed Khan, a close aide of Siddaramaiah, rebelled against denial of ticket to K A Jabbar, another Siddaramaiah associate. Their move was perceived to have had the tacit support of Siddaramaiah and mounted as a pushback against the party’s dynastic politics.After the polling, the Congress suspended two Muslim leaders, Jabbar and the CM’s political advisor Naseer Ahmed, for not campaigning in the bypoll.Eventually, the Congress candidate won the election by 5,708 votes – a plunge from its 27,888 margin in 2023, with the SDPI’s Afsar Kodlipete polling 18,975 votes.Subsequently, a leaked, unauthenticated audio suggested that Zameer Ahmed had purportedly asked local Muslim leaders to divert votes to the SDPI. This cost Zameer a place in the first lot of ministers in the Shivakumar Cabinet sworn in on June 3.“The Congress felt the Davangere rebellion was not engineered without the CM’s nod. There was a sense that there could be more internal damage to the party in his remaining two years. Despite Siddaramaiah’s popularity among Muslims, the Congress has banked on the greater Muslim alliance with the party, and the lack of alternatives in the wake of the JD-S allying with the BJP, to effect a change of CM,” a bureaucrat said.New sense of confidenceThe Congress’s move to change the CM is clearly aimed at infusing new energy in its Karnataka rank and file, especially in the wake of a generational change in the leadership in neighbouring states, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, after the recent elections.The Congress’s new sense of confidence, that propelled its Karnataka decision, also stems from its effective resolution of the row over its CM in Kerala and its swift post-poll move to help the Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK), led by popular film star and youth icon C Joseph Vijay, form the government.you may likeThe party had in the past hedged on midterm decisions to replace its veteran leaders like Ashok Gehlot and Kamal Nath as the CM with younger claimants like Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, respectively, and paid the price with electoral debacles later.Shivakumar playShivakumar has been known for his pro-business image and control over media narratives. While Siddaramaiah did not actively use the media to argue his case for continuance as a rural-focused CM, the wealthy, urban Shivakumar positioned himself as a go-getting, pro-market leader intent on effecting Bengaluru’s transformation.While Siddaramaiah skipped the World Economic Forum at Davos in his second term, Shivakumar attended the event this January to connect with investors. He projected Bengaluru as “the city of the future” there. “I spoke at the session ‘Are Cities Up To It’ where we discussed how cities must move beyond incremental change and adopt integrated, people-centred solutions that bring together mobility, energy, nature and technology. … As India’s technology and knowledge capital, this approach positions Bengaluru to collaborate with global partners to drive inclusive growth and responsible innovation.”