‘Nero fiddled while Rome burned.’ This ancient Roman saying perfectly fits Congress leader Rahul Gandhi when it comes to dealing with the deepening political crisis in Karnataka, one of the only three remaining states where his party still governs. Gandhi remains in his bubble, while Karnataka drifts. It is quite possible he may well be engaged behind the scenes, but it has done little to resolve a deadlock that has dragged on for months. If the party high command cannot resolve the leadership crisis soon, it risks losing its flagship state in the next assembly election. And who will be blamed then? There are no prizes for guessing.
It was against this backdrop that senior leader B K Hariprasad returned from Delhi recently after consultations with the high command and offered a vivid description of Deputy Chief Minister and state president D K Shivakumar or DKS. He said DKS was no longer just the “Rock” of party lore but a powerful railway engine pulling the organisation forward. The remark worked as both, a compliment and a caution. A locomotive generates energy, speed and attention. It also produces noise, heat and pressure as it approaches a crowded platform. To paraphrase Hariprasad’s words, the current commotion inside the Karnataka Congress was not necessarily a sign of collapse but of momentum. Yet the same metaphor contained a warning. A train cannot run on two tracks at once. However strong the engine, the direction of travel depends on the signal it receives.
It is clear that the signal has been conspicuously delayed or even absent. The much-touted original understanding after the 2023 victory, that the chief minister would hand over the chair midway through the five-year term to his deputy, was meant to ensure a smooth journey, a handover of the baton without disruption to governance. Instead, the state has been watching an extended standoff in which both leaders assert legitimacy while the central leadership refrains from an open, time-bound decision. It only reinforces Gandhi’s image of a leader who hesitates, a leader who likes to live in his bubble, a perception of inaction. And don’t we all know that in electoral politics, perception often travels faster than performance.
This is particularly striking because the state government itself has not been without achievements. Welfare guarantees have altered the consumption base in rural and lower-income households. The administration has retained Karnataka’s investment appeal. Bengaluru continues to draw global technology capital.
In purely administrative terms, the train is moving. But politics is not measured only by delivery. It is measured by clarity of command. When the question of succession becomes a permanent noise, it begins to overshadow the record of governance. The party high command cannot afford that in its present dire national condition. Its geography of governance has shrunk so much that an ordinary man will have to think hard to name the states where it still governs.
Karnataka is the only large southern state where the Congress commands a full majority on its own strength. Telangana is recent and still consolidating. Himachal Pradesh is small. In this landscape, instability in Karnataka is not a regional story anymore. It is a test of Gandhi’s leadership itself. It is a test to determine if he can manage authority where his party actually governs.
Hariprasad’s formulation that only Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi (you can easily disregard the first name) can determine the final direction was, therefore, more than a routine expression of loyalty. It was a reminder that in a national party the tracks are laid at the centre, at the party high command. State leaders provide the drive, but the route comes from the command structure. By insisting that the high command is neither helpless nor indifferent, Hariprasad was attempting to reassure a cadre that had begun to read delay as distance and indifference or even lack of courage to take a firm decision.
Yet every month that the issue remains unresolved is likely to strengthen the Opposition’s narrative that the Congress is internally preoccupied and is engaged in a war with itself and that its leadership in Delhi is weak. The BJP does not need to win the argument immediately. It only needs to keep the focus on Congress disunity to keep the narrative of indecision and infighting on the boil. The Janata Dal (Secular), though reduced, is watching for openings in the Vokkaliga belt. The longer the Congress appears to be negotiating with itself, the more it risks turning a comfortable mandate into a competitive election. It will be a self-inflicted tragedy.
There is also the personal dimension. Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar represent different social coalitions, different organisational cultures and different political journeys. The 2023 victory was built on Shivkumar’s organisational strength. The succession formula was meant to reward the man. For two and a half years their combination worked well, perhaps in the hope that the transfer of power would be smooth. Don’t we all know that the Congress has historically paid a price when leadership questions turn into factional identity markers?
This is why the powerful locomotive imagery resonates beyond its rhetorical flourish. An engine is valuable not because it is powerful but because it pulls the entire formation in a single direction, doesn’t it? Luckily enough, in Karnataka today, the party still has the advantage of incumbency, a functioning government and a fragmented opposition.
For Rahul Gandhi a decisive, transparent handling of the Karnataka transition would send a signal that the party can manage power as effectively as it mobilises opposition. Continued ambiguity sends the opposite message. The risk, therefore the DKS camp might argue, is not of an immediate derailment but of a gradual backsliding. If the Congress allows a perception to take root that it cannot resolve its own internal squabbles, it hands its rivals a narrative that will run all the way to the next assembly election. And that would be rather unfortunate.
(Syed Zubair Ahmed is a
London-based journalist.)
