He has served eight years as Chief Minister of Karnataka. But on Saturday evening at Bengaluru's Ravindra Kalakshetra, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah made clear that one 'Mukhya Mantri' title is simply non-negotiable — and it belongs to the stage, not the secretariat. Siddaramaiah spoke after attending the 900th performance of the celebrated Kannada play 'Mukhya Mantri', led by veteran actor and theater doyen Mukhya Mantri Chandru.

The man who never leaves office

Siddaramaiah reserved his sharpest and warmest line for the occasion: 'I was Chief Minister for eight years. Now I am a former Chief Minister. But Chandru will never be a former Chief Minister — he is the permanent Chief Minister.' The quip drew its meaning from Chandru's stage identity: he is so inseparably linked to the play and the role that audiences across Karnataka know him by the title itself.

Now 73 years old, Mukhya Mantri Chandru has, according to Siddaramaiah's remarks at the event, acted in 93 plays and performed in more than 530 film roles. His longevity on stage, Siddaramaiah noted, is not incidental — theater demands a kind of relentless discipline that film simply cannot replicate. 'In cinema, a director can call 'cut' and reshoot a scene. On stage, there is no such opportunity. The artist must perform live, directly before the audience. That is the greatest challenge for a theater artist.'

A friendship that spans decades — and assemblies

The two men go back further than most realise. Siddaramaiah recalled entering the Karnataka Legislative Assembly in 1983, with Chandru following two years later in 1985 — brought into politics by the late former Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde. Over the years, Chandru served as an MLA, a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC), and as Chairman of the Kannada Development Authority, crisscrossing the state to champion the Kannada language and culture.

Siddaramaiah described Chandru as a close personal friend of many years, and said the celebration — organised by Chandru's wife, family members and close associates — brought him genuine happiness. 'Time moves very fast,' he observed. 'Yet Chandru's enthusiasm has not diminished by even a fraction.'

Theater as Karnataka's oldest truth-teller

Siddaramaiah used the milestone to make a broader point about the role of Kannada theater in public life. Even as society changes, he argued, certain wrongs persist — and it is the stage that has consistently held a mirror to them. The play 'Mukhya Mantri' itself, he said, leaves audiences spellbound through Chandru's extraordinary performance, embedding its social message through the power of live storytelling rather than policy diktat.

He closed with a personal blessing: that Mukhya Mantri Chandru should live long, stay healthy, and go on to perform in many more plays. Karnataka's tradition of politicians and artists sharing the same cultural soil, he implied, is not an accident — it is a feature of public life worth preserving.

The curtain on the 900th show has now fallen. The run, by all indications, is nowhere close to its final act.