With the Karnataka Assembly elections exactly a month away, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is a busy man, dividing time between his personal campaign and overseeing the list of candidates. The longest serving Chief Minister in 40 years after Devaraj Urs is confident that his party will return to power. Excerpts from an interview:
What would you say is the most important issue in this election?
Threat to democracy and the Constitution. Union Minister Ananthkumar Hegde has said openly that they have come to power to change the Constitution. The BJP is set to destroy the secular fabric of this country. The BJP cannot be allowed to continue if democracy has to be restored and the Constitution respected.
Are you suggesting that a larger national principle is at stake in the Karnataka poll?
If the national scene has to change, the Congress has to come back to power in Karnataka. Look at how the communal forces are spreading disharmony in the country. Minorities, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward classes are living in fear.
How do you look ahead at 2019? Is there a consolidation of small parties and forces around this question?
All secular-minded people should come together to defeat the communal forces at the national level under the leadership of the Congress. I see this as a distinct possibility. There are regional parties in several States which are quite strong and are also strongly against communalism... Also, the image created during the last Parliament elections about Narendra Modi through good marketing has crumbled. Recent elections show that. Even in Gujarat, if our party structure had not been weak, we would have won. And look at the results of the recent by-elections in Uttar Pradesh.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit Karnataka 10-15 times in the last leg of the election campaign.
Modi has already visited Karnataka five times and nothing has happened. You cannot wave a magic wand and change things in an election.
And your counter strategy when Mr. Modi comes?
Let him come and reveal his strategy. We have enough arrows in our quiver. We will make use of Pashupatastra when the time comes.
Are you not rattled by what the BJP calls the mighty campaign led by Amit Shah and Modi?
Where is the mighty campaign? Making baseless allegations against me is a mighty campaign? What is the basis when he says that the Siddaramaiah government is ‘10% commission government’? Where is the evidence? Being a prime minister, he should not have made such false allegations. Our government is a scandal-free government. During the BJP government, B.S. Yeddyurappa, G. Janardhana Reddy and two other minsters went to jail. Is it not a fact?
But two BJP leaders who went to jail are now in your party...
I took out a padayatra against Janardhana Reddy who threw a challenge in the Assembly asking me to come to Ballari. My fight was against Reddy who ran the ‘Republic of Ballari.’ No doubt there are cases against some who have been inducted into my party, but no charge is proved against them so far.
You have recommended religious minority status to Lingayats, who form a big chunk of the electorate, just before the polls.
The community had given several petitions to the government. I referred all these petitions to the minority commission, which constituted a committee. The committee recommended minority status. It has nothing to do with elections. Some people are claiming that there is a division of votes between Lingayat and Veerashaivas on account of this. But I see no such thing.
But some religious heads of the community have declared support to your party.
It is for them (seers) to decide which party they should support.
Will you not talk about it in your campaign?
No, I am not going to touch it. It’s not a relevant issue in these elections.
You have of late been staking claim to being a ‘real Hindu.’ Is the BJP compelling you to claim you are Hindu and visit temples and mutts?
Amit Shah called me ‘Ahindu.’ What’s that mean?... In the eyes of the RSS, those who oppose the RSS are not Hindus. They brand all those people who oppose caste discrimination and inequality as anti-Hindus. The RSS wants continuation of the same caste system and same political system.
You have also been pushing the agenda of regional pride and State flag ahead of the poll.
Reorganisation of States happened on linguistic lines. So a regional language has to be given primacy in the land where it is spoken. And the State flag is an old demand. Who says that a State cannot have its own flag?
Are you trying to counter the BJP’s nationalist narrative through these?
Let the BJP say openly that they oppose the State flag. They have no clarity on the State flag, Hindi language imposition or on sovereignty of a State in a federal structure.
You have lobbed two issues -- on granting religious minority status to Lingayats and State flag -- to the Centre’s court.
I have done so because the Centre has to take a decision. If I had the powers, I would have taken the decision myself.
Some of your big welfare schemes, such as free rice scheme Anna Bhagya, have been criticised as “populist.”
I want to know what is a ‘populist’ programme. Any programme that socially and economically empowers people cannot be dismissed as populist. We want to make Karnataka hunger-free. So we give free rice.
But why free?
Why not free? We are giving it to those who sweat to create these assets. It is their own money. Basavanna (12th century philosopher-poet and Lingayat saint) also said the same when he talked about “Kayaka” (labour) and “Dasoha” (distribution of wealth). What is wrong with it? When industrialists’ loans are waived the same question of populism is not raised. Why? These words are coined by those who are against the poor and against social welfare.
Will this be your last election? You said so last time too.
I am contesting this time because having been Chief Minister for five years I did not want to run away from the fight. But this will be my last.
