A little over a year ago, Siddaramaiah sat for a Kannada television interview and openly shared a personal ambition: he wanted to become Karnataka’s longest-serving Chief Minister. Now, having weathered internal party friction and persistent rumors of a rift with his deputy, DK Shivakumar, that goal is finally within his grasp. On January 6, a massive "Nati Koli Oota" (country chicken feast) is planned in Bengaluru to celebrate the moment he officially overtakes the record held by the legendary D Devaraj Urs.
The parallels between Siddaramaiah and Urs are striking, almost uncanny. Urs, who led the state for a total of 2,792 days (roughly 7.6 years) across two terms, was the first leader to successfully break the political stranglehold of the dominant Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities.
Now, Siddaramaiah has effectively resurrected that same playbook. As a prominent face of the Kuruba Gowda community — which numbered 4,372,847 during the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census — he has positioned himself as the modern-day champion of these marginalised groups.
Both men had to navigate treacherous political waters and friction with national heavyweights to keep their seats. Urs famously clashed with Indira Gandhi during the 1970s, eventually leading to his exit from the Congress in 1979. Siddaramaiah’s journey was similarly fraught; he was once a cornerstone of the Janata Dal(Secular) under HD Deve Gowda, but was expelled in 2005 after a power-sharing dispute. By the time he joined Congress in 2006, he had successfully consolidated the Ahinda vote bank, which propelled him to the CM’s office for the first time in 2013.
The electoral numbers also tell a story of two eras of dominance. Under Urs’ leadership in 1972, the Congress swept 165 out of 216 seats with a massive 52.17 per cent vote share. While the political landscape has become much more fragmented since then, Siddaramaiah delivered the party’s most decisive victory in 34 years during the 2023 elections. The Congress secured 135 of 224 seats with a 42.88 per cent vote share, a feat that silenced many of his internal critics and solidified his claim to the top post for a second term.
With only a few days left until he hits the milestone, the upcoming feast in Bengaluru is more than just a celebration of longevity; it is a validation of a specific brand of social-justice politics. By surpassing Urs, Siddaramaiah isn't just breaking a time record— he is cementing a legacy as the primary architect of Karnataka's backward-class political identity in the 21st century.
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