Ex-Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah chairs AHINDA event; 3 key leaders skip
Power Vacuum at AHINDA Silver Jubilee as Siddaramaiah Takes the Stage and Three Senior Figures Stay Away
Bharatmorning.com – The silver jubilee of the Karnataka State Backward Castes Federation, held at Palace Grounds in Bengaluru on Sunday, drew the full weight of the state's former chief minister to its podium — yet conspicuously lacked three of the most visible political figures linked to the AHINDA (Alpasankhyataru, Hindulidavaru, Dalitaru) movement. The absence of Public Works Minister Satish Jarkiholi, Housing Minister BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan, and former minister HC Mahadevappa cast a long shadow over what was meant to be a celebratory milestone for a federation that has shaped reservation politics in the state for twenty-five years.
Siddaramaiah, now 78, stepped into the chairperson's role for the gathering and used the occasion to sharpen demands that have defined his political career since the early 1990s. He urged that the push for 75 percent reservation in government employment and in both the Lok Sabha and state legislatures — covering Dalits, other backward classes, and religious minorities — be intensified rather than diluted. The figure, which would represent a substantial expansion beyond the current 52 percent ceiling in Karnataka's reservation framework, has long been the centrepiece of his advocacy and remains a flashpoint in state-level coalition arithmetic.
A Personal Withdrawal from the 2028 Contest
In a statement that will reshape the Congress party's electoral calculus for the next legislative cycle, Siddaramaiah declared he would not contest the 2028 Assembly elections. His reasoning was blunt and personal:
"The electoral system has become very expensive and has deteriorated. I have also grown old."
The remark lands at a moment when the party is already mapping out its candidate slate for the contest that will precede those elections. By removing himself from the ballot, Siddaramaiah effectively opens a succession question that his own family has begun to answer in public. His son, Yathindra Siddaramaiah, had earlier projected Jarkiholi as a future leader of the backward-class wing, while Jarkiholi himself has openly stated his aspiration to become chief minister by 2028. The interplay between these ambitions and the party's institutional machinery will define the next two years of internal Congress politics in Karnataka.
The Three Who Did Not Come
Of the three absentees, Jarkiholi's non-attendance carried the greatest political weight. Speaking to reporters on Monday, he framed his absence in deliberately understated terms:
"I was not invited, so I did not go. We are not going to make a big deal out of it. AHINDA is not anyone's property. Anyone can claim the AHINDA identity."
The comment, while outwardly conciliatory, underscores a growing fissure within the Congress's backward-class constituency. Jarkiholi has built an independent political following among OBC voters in the state's interior districts, and his public alignment with Siddaramaiah's son rather than with the party's current leadership signals a parallel track of influence that the central office has yet to fully absorb. Khan and Mahadevappa, though less politically prominent, reinforced the perception that the federation's leadership circle is no longer monolithic.
Shivakumar's Counter-Claim
Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, speaking separately, moved to reassert institutional ownership of the AHINDA narrative within the Congress framework:
"AHINDA is ours. Congress ideology is AHINDA ideology. The Congress will continue to uphold its ideology towards the backward classes."
The statement positions the party's current top leadership as the legitimate custodian of the movement's political energy, implicitly contesting any suggestion that the identity belongs to a single individual or faction. In practice, however, the AHINDA label has functioned as a coalition umbrella since the 1990s, binding together Dalit organisations, Hindu minority groups, and OBC associations under a shared reservation agenda. Its silver jubilee was therefore not merely a party function but a cross-community assertion of collective political weight.
Why the Silver Jubilee Matters
The Karnataka State Backward Castes Federation marks twenty-five years of organised advocacy for what the state constitution and subsequent amendments classify as Other Backward Classes. Over that quarter-century, the federation has lobbied for inclusion of additional castes in the OBC list, pushed for sub-categorisation within reserved quotas, and aligned its demands with broader Dalit and minority rights campaigns. Its silver jubilee at Palace Grounds — a venue historically associated with state-level ceremonial functions — was intended to project institutional maturity and continuity.
The fact that the event proceeded without its three most recognisable political faces, while the former chief minister occupied the central platform, reframes the jubilee as less a celebration of collective achievement and more a stage for individual political messaging. For Congress strategists preparing the 2028 battle, the optics are difficult: a movement that claims to represent millions of voters appears, in a single afternoon, to be divided along personal-ambition lines rather than shared ideological purpose.
The weeks ahead will test whether the party can reconcile Siddaramaiah's reservation agenda, Jarkiholi's rising independent profile, and Shivakumar's institutional claim into a coherent electoral platform. The silver jubilee, meant to mark a milestone, has instead exposed the seams in that project.
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