DK Shivakumar: The Congress party's crisis manager set to replace Siddaramaiah as Karnataka CM

Karnataka: Veteran Congress leader Siddaramaiah stepped down as Karnataka chief minister on 28 May. Announcing his resignation, Siddaramaiah said he had done whatever the Congress high command asked of him.

Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar is set to take over the top post, with the new government likely to have two or three deputy chief ministers, according to media reports.

Siddaramaiah’s resignation brings an end to months of speculation over a leadership change in the Congress government in Karnataka, one of the four states currently ruled by the grand old party.

Shivakumar, 64 is all set to take over as Karnataka CM as part of what his supporters claim was a 2.5-year rotational power-sharing agreement between him and Siddaramaiah, arrived at in May 2023 when the Congress party won the Karnataka elections.

The leadership tussle within the ruling party had intensified amid speculation about a possible change of chief minister after the Congress government completed the halfway mark of its five-year term on 20 November 2025.

Active in student politics, he led the state Youth Congress in the 1980s while studying at RC College, Bengaluru. He holds a master’s degree in political science and maintains close community ties with the Vokkaliga group.

Shivakumar entered the Karnataka Legislative Assembly in 1989, winning from Sathanur. Siddaramaiah had entered the assembly a few years before DKS. Over subsequent terms, DKS held portfolios including Home Guards and Prisons (1991-92), Urban Development (1999-2004), Energy (2013-18), and Water Resources and Medical Education (2018-19). DKS became KPCC president in 2020 and Deputy Chief Minister in May 2023 alongside Siddaramaiah.

Among other feats, DKS is often credited with playing a critical role in the formation of the coalition government of Congress and JD(S) in Karnataka following the 2018 elections.

DKS has also been the Congress party’s go-to man outside of Karnataka. In 2001, for example, he hosted Congress MLAs from Maharashtra in Bengaluru as the Vilasrao Deshmukh-led government faced a crisis.

DKS made headlines for a similar reason in 2017. Just before the Gujarat Rajya Sabha elections, he assisted his party in moving Gujarat Congress MLAs to his resort in Bengaluru to prevent them from joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“When the Indian National Congress needed someone to hold a crumbling coalition together, manage a rebellion or turn the tide in a losing state, there was one name the party turned to: DK Shivakumar,” veteran journalist and author Rasheed Kidwai writes in his upcoming biography of DKS.

In the introduction, the book calls DKS India's most-watched – and most relentless – politician, known as 'Kanakapura Bande’ (‘the Rock of Kanakapura’), who has survived ED raids, jail, political exile, and decades of being passed over – and yet emerged stronger each time.

Two years before the arrest, the I-T Department raided Shivakumar's residence and office in Bengaluru. The raids took place after Shivakumar hosted Gujarat Congress MLAs in his resort in August 2017.

Shivakumar is among the richest politicians in Karnataka. According to the 2023 Karnataka Assembly election affidavit filed by DK Shivakumar, the Congress leader and his dependents declared combined assets worth around ₹1,413.78 crore, up from ₹840 crore in 2018.