Ever since he completed his first year in office in 2014, Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah has been calling his government the " Nudidanthe nadediruva sarkara", or the government that walked the talk.
In the last one year, he has raised canvassing to a new level. No state government in the last 60 years has fulfilled so many promises as this government, he claims, as he lists the populist schemes he has launched.
Late last year, however, a discreet survey in Chamundeshwari - his old constituency near Mysore, from where he wished to contest, leaving the neighbouring Varuna seat to his son, Yathindra - revealed that his "achievements" as the chief minister didn't matter much.
He still felt he could pull it off. After all, he had won five elections from the seat since 1983, and lost only two. Besides, former chief minister and JDS leader H.D. Kumaraswamy had been daring him to contest from Chamundeshwari for almost a year, and stepping back now would be a loss of face.
But his characteristic swagger vanished in thin air after a visit to Chamundeshwari last month. The sitting MLA of the JDS, G.T. Deve Gowda, seemed to enjoy immense popularity there and the dominant Vokkaliga community leaders questioned Siddaramaiah about his "anti-Vokkaliga mindset". The CM was now convinced that all was not right. He would have to swallow his pride and look for another seat to be on the safe side.
"It wasn't just the Opposition-led JDS that was out to defeat him, some ambitious Vokkaliga leaders within his own party, too, wanted to see Siddaramaiah defeated," says Mahadev Prakash, a Bangalore-based political analyst.
As the leader of the backward Kuruba caste, which is estimated to have around 9 per cent votes in the state, the CM - who claims to have walked the talk on development - decided to fall back on the goodwill of his caste and nothing else. "Development is good. But caste is still the greatest guarantor of victory in the state," says Kannada writer Sudra Srinivas.
Siddaramaiah finally zeroed in on Badami, a seat 500 kilometres north of Chamundeshwari. A fellow caste leader occupies the seat in the Kuruba-dominated constituency. "So what if he [Siddaramaiah] has never fought an election in this area before. He is a state leader. And he is the tallest leader of the Kurubas. His work as the CM speaks for him and his fight from here will have a positive influence on the whole region," says B.B. Chimankatti, the sitting MLA from Badami.
But not everybody agrees. "Siddaramaiah has been the most caste conscious CM ever. I cannot recall an election when caste and community equations were so important in a state election," says Mahadev Prakash.
In the chessboard of Karnataka's politics, Siddaramaiah has been trying to hold on to his AHINDA plank - the Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits (Alpasankhyataru, Hindulidavaru, Mattu Dalitaru) - while slicing and splicing the Lingayat community. He has agreed to recognise the Lingayats, who comprise 17 per cent of the population, as a separate religious entity. The idea is to divide the sub-castes within the community.
He has been tinkering with other caste cohorts as well. And in the process, he might have strengthened adversaries. For instance, over the last two years, the state has officially celebrated the birthdays of kuldevatas of the Reddy community, an influential but scattered community in north and south Karnataka. The coming together of the Reddys because of these celebrations has meant seat distribution issues in constituencies like Bangalore South and Bommanahalli. Other dominant castes of these places, such as the Vokkaligas, and others have felt left out and are reportedly coming together now to defeat the Congress candidates.
"Not just the Reddys. The Congress government has officially allotted money to several other communities to celebrate jayantis of their kuldevatas. What has happened because of this is that well-established vote banks are feeling the pressure," says Narayana Reddy, a Bangalore-based community leader.
"Some feel that Siddaramaiah has bitten off more than he can chew in terms of caste calculations, but there is a Kannada term, Chanakyasthana. It means Chanakyaniti," says the former minister and state Congress leader, B.K. Chandrashekar.
The 70-year-old Siddaramaiah has claimed that this will be his last election. His dream, he has said, is to win back-to-back elections just as Devraj Urs did.
Urs is also credited with doing something out-of-the-box by sculpting new caste equations. Siddaramaiah may be doing the same. Whether he succeeds or not will be known to all on May 15, when the results are out. But one thing is evident even at this point - in Karnataka, like in many other parts of India, caste is still king.
