Signing you in

When Rahul Gandhi met outgoing Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday to give him the bad news that his time was up, it was done with sensitivity and attention to details. It was a one-on-one meeting where nobody else, not even party president Mallikarjun Kharge was present. Since it was just the two of them, no word about what transpired inside emerged, till Siddaramaiah himself shared it with his close aides. He told them that Gandhi had taken him into confidence and told him,” Come and join me to fight 2029, we will gain enormously from having you join our fight at the Centre.”

Siddaramaiah (right) with DK Shivakumar in Bengaluru on Thursday. (ANI)Siddaramaiah found it difficult to say no to Gandhi.

There were other subtle changes in the Congress’ handling of a mid-term change in chief ministers. The last time this happened was in 2021 when the party isolated its Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh then forced him to resign. He went out, publicly protesting his “humiliation” and then soon quit, walking into the BJP’s arms. Contrast it with the images emerging from Bengaluru on Thursday afternoon: a smiling Siddaramaiah, accompanied by his proposed successor D K Shivakumar .The time and place of his exit was left to him -- the first confirmation of his exit came from Siddaramaiah, not KC Venugopal or Randeep Surjewala -- along with offers of sweeteners, including a ministerial berth for his son or accommodating his supporters. The man himself has said no to a Rajya Sabha seat.

But change of CMs ahead of elections isn’t the only aspect that the Congress seems to be borrowing from the BJP playbook. There’s also an agility of decision-making that was previously not there, and which is identified more with the BJP. For instance, the party which is known for procrastinating decisions, took the decision to dump the DMK for the TVK, on results day itself. “Rahulji made up his mind that very day to support them. He feels that Vijay will be a more popular ally ahead of 2029 and if he campaigns for the Congress, it will really benefit us. Not just that, they will also give us many more seats than the DMK ever did,” said a Congress functionary, requesting anonymity.

To be sure, the fact that the party flirted with the TVK before the election, and decided to stay with its long-term ally the DMK, made the post-results move look opportunistic, but in Indian politics post 2014, such opportunism is often the difference between being on the winning side and on the losing one.

There are other things that seem inspired by the BJP playbook, including , over the past year, having their own supporters (and also trolls) take on critics, and counter narratives. This is something the BJP has excelled at.

Some analysts even see the choice of VD Satheesan as Kerala chief minister as another indication of the party’s new approach. He is a grassroots leader, and while there is some merit to the argument that he may have forced the party’s hand -- Delhi initially preferred KC Venugopal -- the fact is that the Congress respected the choice of a majority of the party instead of forcing theirs (something the party did with disastrous consequences in Punjab in 2021)