HD Kumaraswamy's Aggressive Tussle with DK Shivakumar: What Fuels His Determination?

These days, Union Minister for Steel and Heavy Industries HD Kumaraswamy is breathing fire at his political bête noire, Chief Minister DK Shivakumar. In the last few weeks, he has eclipsed the principal opposition party, the BJP, by taking on the Congress government over several controversial issues and putting the administration in a spot. He remains an active opposition leader in Karnataka while holding an important portfolio in the Union Government. What fuels the 66-year-old Vokkaliga leader’s dogged determination? Is it a fight for the regional party Janata Dal (Secular)’s survival or is it his ambition to return to state politics as CM for a third time after the 2028 assembly polls? Is he signalling to the BJP central leadership that they can count on him to lead the NDA in Karnataka? Perhaps it’s a combination of these factors, and more. Political rivalry between the Vokkaliga leaders dates back over four decades, when a young DK Shivakumar unsuccessfully contested against JD(S) veteran HD Deve Gowda, then a minister in the Ramakrishna Hegde-led Janata Party government, in the Sathanur assembly segment in the 1980s. Despite several major political churns in the state, senior leaders switching sides and coalition governments being formed and dissolved, they have remained arch political rivals – except for a short time when Shivakumar served as a cabinet minister in a Congress-JD(S) coalition government headed by Kumaraswamy in 2018-19. Those working with the Union minister admit that it is an existential battle for the regional party, JD(S), which largely depends on the backing of the dominant Vokkaliga community in the Old Mysuru region. They see Kumaraswamy as a hands-on minister, splitting his time between his responsibilities as a Union minister and a regional party leader.