About

Doddalahalli Kempegowda Shivakumar – Biography

Doddalahalli Kempegowda Shivakumar (born 15 May 1962) is an Indian politician, businessman, and a senior leader of the Indian National Congress. He is currently serving as the 9th Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka, a position he assumed on 20 May 2023. Along with this role, he also holds the portfolios of Water Resources, Bengaluru Development and Town Planning, and Bengaluru Urban District In-charge. Since 2020, Shivakumar has been the President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), having earlier served as its Working President from 2008 to 2010. Between 2014 and 2019, he was a cabinet minister in the Government of Karnataka.

Shivakumar has been a legislator for over three decades. He first represented the Sathanur Assembly constituency from 1989 to 2008, winning four consecutive terms, and since 2008, he has been representing the Kanakapura constituency, where he has secured multiple victories in 2008, 2013, 2018, and 2023.

Personal Life

Shivakumar was born in Kanakapura, near Bengaluru, to Kempegowda and Gouramma. He belongs to the Vokkaliga community. His younger brother, D. K. Suresh, is also a politician and currently serves as a Member of Parliament.

In 1993, Shivakumar married Usha, and the couple has two daughters, Aishwarya and Aabharana, and a son, Aakash. His elder daughter Aishwarya is married to Amartya, the son of Café Coffee Day founder V. G. Siddhartha. Shivakumar is also known as one of the richest politicians in India, having declared assets worth around ₹840 crore during the 2018 elections.

Political Career

Shivakumar’s political journey began in the early 1980s as a student leader. His big breakthrough came in 1989, when, at the age of 27, he was elected to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly from the Sathanur constituency on a Congress ticket. He went on to retain the seat in the 1994, 1999, and 2004 elections. After constituency restructuring, he shifted to Kanakapura, where he continued his winning streak in 2008, 2013, 2018, and 2023.

Throughout his career, Shivakumar has been known as a skilled strategist and troubleshooter for the Congress party. In 2002, during a no-confidence motion against Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Shivakumar played a crucial role by hosting Maharashtra legislators at his resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru, which helped Deshmukh’s government survive. Similarly, in 2017, ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat, he hosted 42 Congress MLAs in Bengaluru to prevent defections, an effort that ensured the victory of senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel.

He was also instrumental in the formation of the Congress–JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka in 2018, showcasing his political acumen. His close ties with senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have further cemented his position as one of the party’s most influential leaders in Karnataka.

On 2 July 2020, he officially took charge as the President of the Karnataka PCC, succeeding Dinesh Gundu Rao. Following the Congress party’s landslide victory in the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections, Shivakumar was sworn in as the Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka, marking one of the highest points in his long political career.