Published Jun 03, 2026 | 3:46 PM ⚊ Updated Jun 03, 2026 | 4:43 PM
DK Shivakumar has patiently waited, strategically manoeuvred, and slowly earned his reward.
Synopsis: He is replacing a socialist chief minister, but Shivakumar has never been apologetic about his wealth. He proudly sports Cartier watches and luxury brand scarves. For Shivakumar, wealth is an asset that has helped paved his role as the party’s troubleshooter, and he has never shied away from acknowledging it. His resources have allowed him to streamline his organisational skills and nip competition in the bud.
For someone who started in student politics in 1979, it has been a 47-year journey for DK Shivakumar to become the Chief Minister of Karnataka.
A staunch Congressman, a loyalist of the Gandhi-Nehru family, and perhaps one of the rare Congress leaders who chose jail over jumping ship, DK Shivakumar has patiently waited, strategically manoeuvred, and slowly earned his reward.
The journey has not been all black and white. The grey areas have often been used as a stick to beat him with, but Shivakumar has remained unabashedly assertive and unapologetic about the brand of politics that has shaped his rise.
“As a young Congress worker, I had campaigned for Rajiv Gandhi. I learnt election management there,” Shivakumar once told this reporter during a discussion on the 2023 Karnataka Assembly polls.
There was a sense of pride in the statement – the pride of being a “Congressman from the go”. Yet, he contested as an independent in 1994 after the party denied him a ticket – the lone exception in his political career.
Having lost his first Assembly election to HD Deve Gowda, Shivakumar has not lost another since.
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In 2013, when Siddaramaiah took oath as Chief Minister of Karnataka for the first time, DK Shivakumar was not inducted into the cabinet initially.
The Congress had won the election after the famous Bellary Chalo padayatra, where a folk-dance-performing Siddaramaiah led the campaign against illegal mining.
At the time, Shivakumar himself was facing allegations of illegal mining, and Siddaramaiah was reluctant to induct him into the cabinet. It took months of lobbying and direct intervention from the AICC leadership before Shivakumar was eventually made a minister.
Ironically, the same DK Shivakumar has now replaced Siddaramaiah as chief minister. Coincidentally, Shivakumar is exactly the age Siddaramaiah was when he first took oath as chief minister – 64.
Hailing from Dodalahalli in Kanakapura, about 80 km south of Bengaluru, Shivakumar emerged as a trusted aide of the late SM Krishna, a former external affairs minister, former Karnataka chief minister and fellow Vokkaligxfra leader.
Shivakumar proved himself as a leader who could mobilise crowds, marshal resources and coerce his way.
His assertive, often undiplomatic approach has often goaded detractors, both within and outside the Congress, to accuse him of being “violent” and of “bulldozing his way” through politics.
Videos of Shivakumar slapping party workers for attempting to take selfies with him, or reports of “trench politics” allegedly employed by him and his brother DK Suresh as a means of political vendetta, have done little to blunt such criticism.
Yet, Shivakumar’s brand of politics has helped the Congress navigate through several challenges.
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Over the last two and a half decades, DK Shivakumar has established himself as the Congress party’s money and muscle man – its troubleshooter and crisis manager.
Whether it was helping save the Vilasrao Deshmukh government in 2002, shielding Gujarat MLAs from the BJP in 2017 to secure Ahmed Patel’s Rajya Sabha election, or camping outside a Mumbai hotel in the rain in 2019 where rebel legislators of the JD(S)-Congress coalition in Karnataka had holed up before jumping ship to the BJP – Shivakumar was the man for the job.
DK Shivakumar sitting in rain outside a hotel in Mumbai where rebel MLAs of JDS-Congress coalition government had huddled up in July 2019. (Twitter/DK Shivakumar)
He is replacing a socialist chief minister, but Shivakumar has never been apologetic about his wealth.
He proudly sports Cartier watches and luxury brand scarves. For Shivakumar, wealth is an asset that has helped paved his role as the party’s troubleshooter, and he has never shied away from acknowledging it.
His resources have allowed him to streamline his organisational skills and nip competition in the bud. “Shivakumar throws money at problems. Sometimes it works,” a senior member of the Congress’s advisory team once told South First.
While some in the Congress aren’t fans of his display of wealth and political muscle, others believe it is the only way to take on the Modi-Shah combine.
To Shivakumar’s credit, he has refused to be intimidated by central agencies or pressured into switching sides, unlike several other Congress leaders.
His aggressive brand of politics and willingness to take issues head-on have has disallowed him to surrender to bullying.
For any other Congress leader, the prospect of landing in jail would have been reason enough to abandon the party. Not Shivakumar.
In 2019, he spent nearly two months in Tihar Jail as agencies such as the CBI, ED and Income Tax Department filed cases after cases against him.
His aged mother and young daughter were made subject to grilling. Sonia Gandhi’s visit to Tihar Jail in a show of support only strengthened Shivakumar’s resolve to fight back.
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Shivakumar has a long list of criminal cases against him. He also has a long list of positions he has held in the Congress, charting his rise through the party ranks.
He faces allegations ranging from disproportionate assets and illegal mining to encroachment. At the same time, he has the distinction of helping the Congress fight elections across states and safeguard its governments on multiple occasions.
As cut-throat as he is in politics, Shivakumar places great value on personal relationships. To this day, his younger brother, DK Suresh, works as his shadow and with complete loyalty to the leader.
Even after SM Krishna joined the BJP following his effective retirement from active politics, Shivakumar continued to be his confidante. The relationship eventually turned personal when Shivakumar’s daughter married Krishna’s grandson.
Shivakumar may not be a mass leader in the mould of Siddaramaiah, but within the Congress he has mentored a generation of younger leaders who swear by him.
A staunch believer in God, Shivakumar has cultivated friendships across party lines, much like the successful businessman he is. He often calls himself as “an agriculturist by birth, a businessman by profession, an educationist by choice and a politician by passion”.
After more than four decades in public life, he has finally ascended to the office he spent years working towards.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
