DKS' unity mantra at helm of faction-hit party

"Beware! I'm the rock of Kanakapura. It’s your head that’ll break if you hit it."

It is this swaggering machismo that Doddalahalli Kempegowda Shivakumar carries, earning him friends and enemies alike. This never-say-die attitude also elevated Shivakumar as the Congress’ Man Friday.

The 57-year-old, 7-time legislator has been appointed as the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president amidst a leadership crisis that prolonged for three months since Dinesh Gundu Rao resigned.

“I will take everyone into confidence,” Shivakumar said. He stressed on this given that the Congress is riddled with factions, one of them led by former chief minister Siddaramaiah with whom Shivakumar does not get along well, it is said. “There will be no power centres. I worship the party, not any individual,” he added.

He said he was a student leader in the 1980s when then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi recognized him, leading to his first election to the Legislative Assembly in 1989.

Shivakumar became notable as the Congress’ go-to man in 2002. The then Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh sought the help of his Karnataka counterpart S M Krishna to safeguard the party’s MLAs. Krishna entrusted the job to Shivakumar, who kept the MLAs safe in a Bidadi resort.

In 2017, Shivakumar safeguarded 44 Gujarat MLAs in the same resort, even as he faced I-T raids. He did the same for Congress-JD(S) after the 2018 Assembly polls. When MLAs resigned last year, Shivakumar was the first responder, but he could do little.

In October 2019, an emotional Shivakumar received a hero's welcome after his 50-day incarceration for alleged money laundering. He continues to be probed for benami properties.

Seen as a chief ministerial aspirant, Shivakumar considers himself to be just a party worker. “I’ve always toiled as a party worker irrespective of the position I’ve held. Even now, I want to serve the people of the state by being the voice of the party workers,” he said.

Shivakumar belongs to the powerful Vokkaliga community. The last Vokkaliga to head Karnataka Congress was S M Krishna, who steered the party to victory in the 1999 Assembly polls. With the other dominant community, Lingayats, seen to be backing Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa of the BJP, the Congress will look at Shivakumar to consolidate the Vokkaligas in the party’s favour.

A postgraduate in political science, Shivakumar chairs the National Education Foundation and the DKS Charitable Institute Trust that run several educational institutions.