Newsmaker | Kharge’s son-in-law picks up the baton in Gulbarga: Who is Radhakrishna Doddamani?

When the S M Krishna-led Congress government was in power in Karnataka between 1999 and 2004, among the names that did the rounds of the power corridors were those of two sons-in-law. One was Krishna’s son-in-law V G Siddhartha, who passed away in 2019, and the other was Mallikarjun Kharge’s son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani.

Kharge, who is now the national president of the Congress, was the state home minister at the time and it was widely speculated that while Siddhartha could influence Krishna’s decisions Doddamani had Kharge’s ear. The Congress this time has fielded the sons and daughters of at least five state ministers and the spouses and kin of a few leaders in Karnataka for the Lok Sabha elections and among them is 60-year-old Radhakrishna, a businessman who will be in the fray from his father-in-law’s former parliamentary constituency Gulbarga.

Doddamani is tasked with retaking Gulbarga that used to be one of the Congress’s strongholds. In 2019, the party lost from the constituency for only the third time since 1952. It was also Kharge’s first electoral defeat in his 60-year political career. Doddamani had been working behind the scenes so far, managing the political and financial affairs of Kharge and, as a result, he is known to have the ear of Congress leaders when it comes to local politics. He especially managed Kharge’s matters in the erstwhile Assembly segment of Gurmitkal.

“He is regarded as an approachable person and is open to people. He is good at communicating with people and has vast experience managing polls and affairs in Gurmitkal, which Kharge represented in the past,” said a local leader in Kalaburagi.

One of the possible reasons for Kharge’s loss in 2019 was his gradual estrangement from a vast