D.K. Shivakumar takes oath as Karnataka CM

• Senior Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar took oath as Karnataka Chief Minister on June 3.

• Shivakumar was elected leader of the Congress Legislature Party in Karnataka on May 30, following Siddaramaiah’s resignation as CM on May 28. 

• Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot administered the oath of office and secrecy to Shivakumar at the Lok Bhavan here and 13 other party legislators were also sworn in as ministers.

• Senior MLA G. Parameshwara is the new Deputy CM.

• Eleven of the 13 ministers inducted into Shivakumar-led cabinet were part of the previous Siddaramaiah government in the state. 

• Siddaramaiah’s son and MLC Yathindra also made it to the ministry. 

• Shivakumar had served as Deputy Chief Minister under Siddaramaiah.

Congress troubleshooter to Karnataka CM

• Born on May 15, 1962, in Doddalahalli village near Kanakapura town in Bengaluru South district to Kempegowda and Gauramma, Shivakumar entered politics during his college days in the early 1980s. 

• He is popularly called ‘Kanakapura Bande’ (the Rock of Kanakapura). 

• His first major political break came in 1985 when he contested from the Sathanur Assembly segment on a Congress ticket, though unsuccessfully. 

• Four years later, he won from the constituency and entered the Assembly in 1989. Since then, he has won eight consecutive Assembly elections.

• Over the years, the 64-year-old leader steadily positioned himself as the Congress party’s strongman. 

• He earned the reputation of being the Congress party’s “troubleshooter”. 

• In 2017, the Congress high command assigned to him the responsibility of safeguarding 42 Gujarat Congress MLAs in Bengaluru ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections to prevent cross-voting. 

• The Income Tax Department raided properties linked to him during that period. Subsequently, a series of raids and searches by the Enforcement Directorate also followed. 

• On September 3, 2019, Shivakumar was arrested and he was lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail for 50 days. 

• In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress managed to win just one of 28 seats in the state.

• A month after the Lok Sabha debacle, the Congress-JD(S) coalition government led by H.D. Kumaraswamy collapsed following the disqualification of 18 Congress and JD(S) MLAs, many of whom later joined the BJP and helped the saffron party return to power in the state for the fourth time.

• The subsequent bypolls to the 18 seats proved disastrous for the Congress-JD(S) alliance, with the BJP winning 15 constituencies. 

• It was in these circumstances that the Congress leadership turned to Shivakumar in 2020. 

• Under his leadership, the Congress returned to power with a thumping majority in the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections, winning 134 seats in the 224-member House. 

• Shivakumar was appointed Deputy Chief Minister.