BENGALURU: In 2018, Doddalahalli Kempegowda Shivakumar showed his crisis management skills when he shifted Congress lawmakers to a resort in a bid to save the fragile alliance government led by HD Kumaraswamy. Despite the fall of the government, DK Shivakumar emerged as the Congress’s premier crisis manager.
A year later, after being released from Tihar Jail in Delhi, where he spent 50 days after his arrest in a money laundering case linked to tax investigations, Shivakumar stood before his supporters, visibly emotional, and declared: “I have proven my loyalty.” After his release, he repeatedly said that he was sent to prison on charges of protecting the party.
Since then, the party has sent him across states to manage crises. In February 2024, he was sent to Himachal Pradesh to prevent the fall of the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government after six Congress MLAs voted against the party’s candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who lost the Rajya Sabha poll. Shivakumar was the party’s special observer for the recently concluded Assam Assembly elections as well as the 2023 Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday announced that Shivakumar would be the next chief minister in a breakfast meeting with his cabinet colleagues before resigning. Unlike Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar’s journey to the chief minister’s office was through organizing the party and earning the trust of the party high command. For Siddaramaiah, it was through ideological positioning and building a backward vote base.
“Don K’s rise shows that the party has rewarded him for his organizational and crisis management skills,” a senior Karnataka Congress leader said, adding that Shivakumar’s skills were not only used in Karnataka but across the states. The leader said: “The real test of emerging as a mass leader will begin now.”
Born in Kanakapura, Shivakumar entered electoral politics through the Congress in the old Mysuru district before winning his first parliamentary election from Sathanur in 1989. Over the course of successive elections, he consolidated his position in the Vokkaliga (caste) belt of south Karnataka while steadily expanding his role within the party machinery.
His move to Bengaluru for higher studies became an important turning point in his political career. Shivakumar studied at the National College in Basavanagudi, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree and became active in the National Students Union of India (NSUI). “Until then, he was an intensely organizational person, more interested in building personal and political networks than in public speaking,” said one leader associated with him from his NSUI days.
His rise within Karnataka Congress politics coincided with that of former Chief Minister SM Krishna, the party’s senior Vokkaliga leader. Shivakumar has publicly acknowledged Krishna’s role in shaping his early political career. Krishna later joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Shivakumar’s political relationship with Siddaramaiah has come to define the internal structure of the Congress Party in the southern state over the past decade. The two leaders represent different centers of influence within the organization – with Siddaramaiah deriving support from backward caste mobilization and welfare politics while Shivakumar draws support from organizational control and Vokkaliga networks in south Karnataka.
Party leaders credited Shivakumar for his victory in the 2023 Assembly elections, saying he rebuilt booth-level structures, strengthened local coordination and maintained close communication with party workers across districts. As a reward, Shivakumar was made deputy chief minister and retained as Karnataka Congress president, a rare dual role for a leader.
Shivakumar married Usha Shivakumar in 1993. The couple has three children – daughters Aishwarya and Abharana, and son Akash. His eldest daughter Aishwarya is married to Amartya Hegde, son of Café Coffee Day founder late VG Siddhartha and grandson of SM Krishna. His younger brother, DK Suresh, is also a Congress politician and previously served as Member of Parliament from Bengaluru Rural constituency.
