The protracted suspense over whether there would be a leadership change in Karnataka—an issue that has dominated the State’s political headlines over the past three years—finally came to a smooth end on May 28, 2026, when Chief Minister Siddaramaiah submitted his resignation to Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot.

At the packed press conference that followed, with his successor D.K. Shivakumar seated on his right, Siddaramaiah said he was complying with the Congress high command’s decision and emphasised that he was not withdrawing from active politics, asserting that he would “fight against communal forces till his last breath”. His refusal to head to the Rajya Sabha was also in keeping with his entrenched commitment to the politics of Karnataka.

The deluge of heartfelt encomiums that followed from across Karnataka’s society revealed the profound impact Siddaramaiah has had on the State’s politics since he first became an MLA in 1983. If one takes that year as his formal entry into Karnataka’s political echelon, Siddaramaiah has spent more than four decades taking colossal steps on the political and social firmament of the State, creating a legacy his successors will find hard to follow.

His political career can be neatly split into two halves. The first was anchored in a political space opposed to the Congress, and this lasted until he was expelled from the Janata Dal (Secular) in 2005. The second, and perhaps more significant, phase began when he joined the Congress in 2006.

This set him on a course that would lead him to become the Leader of the Opposition twice, followed by two Chief Ministerial tenures, although his second came to an end after a little over three years. In January this year, Siddaramaiah set the record for the longest-serving Chief Minister of the State. While he demitted office gracefully, according to sources close to him, the veteran politician had no inkling that he would be asked to resign until he was summoned to Delhi on May 27.

An old acquaintance of Siddaramaiah once told this reporter that he “was unlike other professional politicians who forayed into politics to build a career, but since politics came naturally to him, he used that opportunity to further his social beliefs”. Siddaramaiah has always been clear about his ideological moorings as a socialist moulded in the Lohiaite kiln of 1970s Mysuru.

Remaining largely faithful to this training, he inaugurated his own brand of welfare politics during his tenure as Finance Minister in the 1990s, his first tenure as Chief Minister between 2013 and 2018 (when he launched a variety of bhagya schemes), and subsequently in his second tenure, when he launched the “five guarantees”. There is rarely a speech in which Siddaramaiah does not invoke the principles of Buddha, Basava, or Ambedkar, grounding his political behaviour and policy decisions in the ideas of these revolutionary figures, each roughly separated from the next by a millennium.

Being a Kuruba, a notable but non-dominant backward caste community in Karnataka, he also assiduously consolidated the AHINDA bloc (a Kannada acronym for religious minorities, Dalits, and backward castes) in the State. While critics have accused him of using the AHINDA bloc to further his own political ambitions, the contour of this relationship is more symbiotic, as his actions and policies have also benefited the bloc, countering the historically overwhelming influence of the Vokkaligas and Lingayats, the dominant castes of Karnataka. As Karnataka’s last mass leader, after the decline of H.D. Deve Gowda and B.S. Yediyurappa, he ensured that his large following in the AHINDA bloc led to two resounding victories for the Congress in the State.

The troubleshooter

Shivakumar is vastly different from Siddaramaiah, both in his ideological grounding and in his political skillset. His foray into politics was through the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the student wing of the Congress, which he joined as a callow 18-year-old. His leadership instincts were evident early on, as he soon attained leadership positions in the NSUI and the Indian Youth Congress, contesting his first Legislative Assembly election (which he lost) against H.D. Deve Gowda in the 1980s. He first became an MLA in 1989, when he was 27 years old, and became a Minister in the Congress government of S. Bangarappa in 1990.

From this precocious start, Shivakumar has come a long way to become an indispensable part of the Congress apparatus, with his influence extending far beyond Karnataka. He has stubbornly remained loyal to the party even as prominent Congress leaders across the country were serially poached by the BJP after 2014. He was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in 2019 and spent 50 days in Tihar Jail. His vital role as a “troubleshooter” for the party gives a sense of how integral he is to the Congress high command.

With massive real estate holdings, he is also one of the richest MLAs in India, with a net worth exceeding Rs.1,400 crore. An eight-time MLA, he represented Sathanur from 1989 to 2008 and Kanakapura from 2008 onward. Apart from being an adept and resourceful raiser of funds, his loyalty to the Gandhi family, particularly to Sonia Gandhi, has almost become legendary in journalist circles in Karnataka, and with his appointment, the high command has upheld the promise made to him when he led the Congress to power in the State as president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) in 2023.

While his leadership and organisational skills are unquestioned, one notable question is whether he has the ability to draw in voters from across Karnataka. Unlike the AHINDA bloc, whose voters are spread all over the State, Shivakumar’s own caste members, the Vokkaligas, are heavily concentrated in south Karnataka, in the rural hinterland of Bengaluru and Mysuru, where their votes have historically split between the Congress and the JD(S).

The sense is that, now that the Congress has appointed a Vokkaliga as Chief Minister after a gap of 22 years (since S.M. Krishna’s tenure ended in 2004), members of this dominant and influential caste may rally behind the “Kanakapura Bande” (”Rock of Kanakapura”). But will he be able to sustain and expand the Congress’ expansive rainbow coalition in Karnataka?

There are no clear answers at this moment, but considering the moribund state of the BJP in Karnataka, much may depend on whom Shivakumar privileges in his Cabinet among the large and socially diverse group of senior Congress leaders in the State, and whether he can emerge as a pan-Karnataka leader transcending his narrow image. The choice of the KPCC president will also have to be made judiciously by the high command, given the pivotal responsibility of the role.

An unclear path

When Siddaramaiah was appointed Chief Minister designate of Karnataka in May 2013, the first set of people he met were the socialists of Mysuru from among his circle of friends dating back to the 1970s, symbolically reiterating his commitment to progressive politics at the start of his first tenure. This is where the orientation of Shivakumar’s governance is unclear, because he is known not as an ideologically rooted statesman but as a consummate politician.

The natural and easy direction for his government to take would be to emulate the Bengaluru-centric, big-business-friendly governance model that his patron, Krishna, adopted during his tenure as Chief Minister between 1999 and 2004. Shivakumar has stated that he will continue the welfarist policies of Siddaramaiah, but spending on the “five guarantees” has burdened the State’s exchequer, so it will be interesting to see how the new Chief Minister grapples with these schemes.

Shivakumar will take oath on June 3 at 4:05 pm in a low-key, modest ceremony at the Lok Bhavan in Bengaluru. The time for the swearing-in is influenced by astrological considerations, and in this inaugural moment itself the stark difference between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar becomes evident: the former has never been guided by astrology or other superstitious rituals, while Shivakumar has prominently displayed his affinity for astrologers and worn his deep faith on his sleeve.

During the campaign for the 2023 elections, the Congress hit upon a perfect formula in which the mass appeal of Siddaramaiah was combined with the indefatigable organisational prowess of Shivakumar, and the party hit the jackpot. The political history of Karnataka shows that no incumbent party has been re-elected to power after 1985; if the Congress wants to break this pattern and return to power in 2028, it needs both Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah to work in tandem once again.

For that to happen, both leaders need to rein in their instinctive political behaviour. Shivakumar has to tweak his image and transition from being merely an organisational man to a leader accepted across Karnataka, while Siddaramaiah, who remains the tallest statesman of Karnataka, must find the grace to extend his full support to Shivakumar and keep his political constituency intact for the Congress.

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