Challenges await DK Shivakumar as he takes charge as Karnataka CM

Bengaluru: Having assumed charge as Karnataka’s Chief Minister, D K Shivakumar has his task cut out, as he will have to prepare the Congress party for the 2028 Assembly polls in two years, while carefully navigating challenges on multiple fronts.

The 64-year-old leader is helming the government at a crucial phase, as the state faces challenges on political, financial, and administrative fronts.

The first challenge the new chief minister has to carefully address is cabinet formation and portfolio allocation. The CM successfully inducted 13 ministers into his cabinet in the first phase on Wednesday. Karnataka has a sanctioned strength of 34 ministers, including the chief minister.

With many ministerial aspirants and limited berths available, Shivakumar has a tightrope to walk.

In the new cabinet, he will have to strike a balance by ensuring representation while keeping caste equations, regions, and Siddaramaiah loyalists in mind.

Keeping the AHINDA vote bank with Congress will be one of the key tasks for the Vokkaliga strongman Shivakumar, now that Siddaramaiah has stepped down as chief minister.

The strong consolidation of AHINDA (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits) votes in favour of Congress, with Siddaramaiah considered a strong proponent of these communities at the helm, helped Congress come to power in 2023. Their support remains crucial for the party in future polls.

To manage this, Shivakumar must work by taking Siddaramaiah and his supporters into confidence while also continuing to remain on good terms with dominant communities.

Shivakumar must also ensure that the other numerically large dominant community in the state, the Veerashiva-Lingayats, spread over large parts of north Karnataka and in some pockets of the south, are not antagonised by any of his decisions.

The test of how Shivakumar will manage various communities will come when the report on the social and educational survey, popularly known as the “caste census,” is out.

Various communities, especially the dominant Lingayats and Vokkaligas, had strong objections to the earlier survey report, and Shivakumar himself had expressed reservations.

Many in Congress believe that Shivakumar’s elevation may further consolidate Vokkaligas, who are predominantly present in the old Mysuru region, toward the party, ahead of the 2028 Assembly polls.

The perceptible shift in Vokkaligas’ support to Congress in the 2023 Assembly elections was largely prompted by the expectation that Shivakumar would be made the chief minister.

Keeping this support base intact will also be a key task for Shivakumar amid the BJP-JD(S) alliance.

Large sections of Vokkaligas still hold in high regard former PM H D Deve Gowda and his son, Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy.

The community remains the JD(S) vote base, and its leaders aim to revive the party’s prospects in alliance with the saffron party in the days ahead.

Managing the state’s financial position amid ballooning spending due to populist guarantee schemes will be another challenge.

In 2026-27, the government has allocated Rs 51,286 crore for the five schemes. Shivakumar has already spoken about reviewing the list of beneficiaries for the guarantee schemes amid concerns over large-scale misuse.

Increased borrowings and rising subsidies have remained a key concern, while any cut in populist welfare schemes may draw public anger.

Looming agrarian crisis with concerns about a below-normal monsoon, slow-paced development projects, addressing issues in backward districts, and completing stalled irrigation projects, including inter-state river issues like Mekedatu, Kalasa-Banduri (Mhadayi), and Upper Krishna by securing necessary approvals from the Centre and addressing the concerns of other riparian states are among the key challenging areas.

With the arrival of the monsoon, Bengaluru’s urban infrastructure, which is already under stress, is likely to come into the limelight once again, and Shivakumar will be held accountable for most of these issues, as he was the Minister in charge of Bengaluru Development in the previous Siddaramaiah-led cabinet.

Another important task at hand is ensuring Congress performs well in the upcoming polls for five city corporations under the Greater Bengaluru Authority, as well as taluk and zilla panchayat elections.

The Supreme Court recently extended the deadline until August 31 for holding the long-pending elections for the Bengaluru civic bodies.

Amid all these, there are personal challenges too. Shivakumar has faced a series of investigations over the years, including income tax cases, money laundering probes by the Directorate of Enforcement and a disproportionate assets case investigated by the CBI.

Though courts have granted him relief in some cases and he has not faced any conviction, the prospect of a sitting CM facing probes or being questioned by agencies is a politically sensitive matter.