On June 3, he will be sworn in as chief minister, putting an end to the kind of behind-the-scenes drama the party has been no stranger to of late. He is the one they turn to – the Vokkaliga scion and the go-to fixer – and it is he who has put together the numbers: 134 in the Assembly in 2023 and nine for the Lok Sabha in 2024.
How Shivakumar got here
It was only after the legislators made him their CLP leader on Saturday that his promotion was a done deal. In a way, it brings to a head all the talk of who would follow in Siddaramaiah’s footsteps. You can count on him to be a solid organiser in a state that has a habit of making waves in national politics.
The government hit the two-and-a-half-year point back in November 2025, and with it came more noise about a possible switch at the top, even if neither he nor Siddaramaiah would put it in writing. For a while there, he was juggling the Deputy CM’s role with the day-to-day running of the party.
Who holds the reins
He has been the face of the Karnataka Congress and in charge of the Water Resource and Bengaluru Development portfolios, come what may. And he is not starting from scratch; the Congress has a firm grip on the 224-member House with 134 of its own, or 140 if you include the independents, as he would have it.
The man who puts out fires
You won’t find where Shivakumar earned his stripes as the Congress’ emergency man in the usual haunts of power in Bengaluru. Go back to 2017 and he was in the city with 42 MLAs from Gujarat to make sure there was no cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha, a move that put Ahmed Patel over the line in a tight race.
But it made him a target, he says. The Income Tax men were at his door, and the Congress put it down to politics. Then the ED got involved. By September 3, 2019, he was in Tihar in Delhi for 50 days.
Some thought that would be the end of his influence, or that he might drift to the BJP. It did the opposite. The high command in New Delhi saw his mettle and, in 2020, made him the KPCC president for his efforts.
There have been a few flashpoints along the way that put him where he is today. A look at the key dates:
– 1985: Tries his hand at Sathanur for the first time, comes up short
– 1989: Makes it to the Assembly
– 2017: Has 42 of the Gujarat Congress MLAs in his corner in Bengaluru
– 2019 (Sept 3): Cuffed and does 50 days in Tihar
– 2020: Made KPCC president when things were at a head
– 2023: 134 Assembly seats for the Congress
– 2024: Nine in the Lok Sabha in this state
– 2025 (Nov 20): The government marks two and a half years
– June 3: He becomes the chief minister
Shivakumar didn’t inherit a well-oiled machine when he took over. The 2018 Assembly results were a letdown, and the 2019 Lok Sabha poll in the state was worse, with the party left with just 28. One of them was in Bengaluru Rural, home to his brother Suresh.
The BJP was in full control. If you add in the likes of Sumalatha Ambareesh in Mandya, they had 26. Not long after, the coalition with the JD(S) fell apart once 18 MLAs were outed, most of them to be found in the BJP camp before too long.
The bypolls for those 18 seats were a write-off for the opposition, with the BJP walking away with 15. Dinesh Gundu Rao and Siddaramaiah both put in their resignations, leaving an opening for Shivakumar to step up in 2020.
Fast forward three years and you can see the difference.
Making a comeback
The Congress made a comeback under his watch, 134 seats to the good. Then in 2024 he put in some hard work on the ground in Karnataka and upped the party’s Lok Sabha numbers from a single seat in 2019 to nine, cementing his standing as the one who can move the votes.
When the 2023 results came in, he was made Deputy Chief Minister but didn’t let go of the party helm. With the Bengaluru Development and Water Resource files in his lap, he has held the organisation together, even with some in the state unit calling for a change at the top.
You’ll hear talk of a power-sharing deal with Siddaramaiah, but they’ve been tight-lipped about it. The issue has only come to a head as we hit the mid-term mark, and now he is the legislature party leader. It’s a way to cool things down in the party and keep the government running – you have Siddaramaiah’s experience and his ability to win over the people. For the Congress, it means the man behind the turnaround is also the one in the driver’s seat.
Where he comes from
Long before he was in Vidhana Soudha, there was a boy from Dodda Alahalli in the Kanakapura area of Bengaluru South. Born in 1962 to Kempegowda and Gauramma, he was in politics by the early 80s. After a loss in 1985, he won in 1989 and has had a run of eight straight Assembly wins. Go by “Kanakapura Bande” or the granite rock of the region, he is the Vokkaliga face of the Congress.
He and his wife Usha, whom he wed in 1993, have three children. And the political gene doesn’t stop with him; his brother D K Suresh is the MP from Bengaluru Rural and the one who put a check in the box for the Congress in 2019.
The road ahead
Shivakumar is walking into the job with some clout to show for it. The test is to make sense of the numbers and put in place a steady government without ruffling any feathers in the party.
If you look at what he’s done, a couple of things are clear. He is at his best when the heat is on. And the position he is in is a direct result of the mandate he put in place in 2023 and 2024. From here on in, that’s the standard by which he will be judged.
