BENGALURU: At 3:00 PM on May 28, 2026 Siddaramaiah walked into Lok Bhavan accompanied by Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and Home Minister G Parameshwara and handed his resignation letter to Governor’s Special Secretary Prabhushankar. Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot was away in Indore. The act was quiet, choreographed and three years in the making. Karnataka’s longest-serving Chief Minister had finally stepped down, ending a tenure that reshaped the state’s welfare architecture while never fully escaping the shadow of legal and factional pressure.
The Morning Before and the Words After
Earlier that day senior cabinet ministers gathered at Siddaramaiah’s official residence Kaveri for a breakfast meeting. DK Shivakumar touched the outgoing Chief Minister’s feet to seek his blessings. The display of unity was deliberate. At the press conference that followed the resignation, Siddaramaiah struck a measured tone.
“I have given my resignation on my own accord. Whoever the high command and legislature party chooses will be the CM of the state. I never believed in making a fortune for myself. Only those with people power can come to power.”
He confirmed that the Congress high command had directed him to step down forty-eight hours prior. He said he had always promised to resign when asked and that he had kept his word. The Congress central leadership offered him a Rajya Sabha seat and a national party role as part of the transition arrangement. He declined both. “I have no interest in national politics. I will remain in state politics, as I still have two years left to serve as an MLA.”
Why He Resigned: Legal Pressure and a Long-Running Power Struggle
The immediate trigger was a combination of the MUDA land allotment case and the conclusion of an informal rotational power-sharing arrangement brokered by the Congress high command in 2023. The MUDA controversy alleged that 14 compensatory residential sites in Mysuru’s premium Vijayanagar Layout were allotted to Siddaramaiah’s wife Parvathi B.M. under a 50:50 scheme, in exchange for 3.16 acres of land acquired by the authority. Siddaramaiah denied personal involvement and his wife subsequently returned all 14 sites. However Governor Gehlot sanctioned prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The Karnataka High Court upheld this sanction in September 2024, ruling that an investigation was necessary because the beneficiary of the transactions was the Chief Minister’s family. The court declined to transfer the probe to the CBI in February 2025. In July 2025 the Supreme Court dismissed the Enforcement Directorate’s appeal against the High Court’s order quashing ED summonses to Siddaramaiah’s wife, with Chief Justice B.R. Gavai questioning the use of central agencies in regional political disputes.
Running parallel to this was the power struggle with DK Shivakumar that began the day Congress won the May 2023 assembly elections. Under an informal understanding brokered at the time, Siddaramaiah was to serve the first 30 months and hand over to Shivakumar for the remainder. As the deadline passed and pressure from Shivakumar’s faction intensified, Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi finalised the transition. The additional weight of the Valmiki Corporation scandal where Rs 94 crore was diverted from a tribal welfare body, leading to minister B Nagendra’s arrest and a High Court-ordered CBI probe and the Waqf Board land controversy, which triggered public protests further eroded the political room available to the Chief Minister.
The Career That Brought Him Here
Born on August 3, 1948 in Siddaramanahundi village in Mysore district to a farming family of the Kuruba Gowda backward class community, Siddaramaiah was the first in his family to earn a university degree. He entered the Karnataka Assembly in 1983 on a Bharatiya Lok Dal ticket, influenced by Ram Manohar Lohia’s socialist politics. He served as Deputy Chief Minister twice under Janata Dal governments before his relationship with HD Deve Gowda deteriorated over the rising influence of HD Kumaraswamy. Expelled from JD(S) in 2005 he built the AHINDA coalition a Kannada acronym for Minorities, Backward Classes and Dalits to unite non-dominant communities against the traditional dominance of Lingayats and Vokkaligas. He joined Congress in 2006 and won his first term as Chief Minister in 2013 becoming only the second person in Karnataka’s history to complete a full five-year term. His second term, from May 2023 to May 2026 made him the longest-serving Chief Minister in the state’s history surpassing D. Devaraj Urs.
What His Government Built
Siddaramaiah’s second term was defined by five guarantee schemes delivered through direct benefit transfers. Gruha Lakshmi transferred Rs 2,000 monthly to 1.20 crore women heads of household at a cumulative cost of Rs 25,259 crore. Shakti Yojane provided free bus travel for women recording 270 crore passenger trips. Gruha Jyothi delivered 200 units of free electricity monthly to 1.64 crore families. Anna Bhagya covered 4.26 crore ration card holders. Yuva Nidhi supported 3.38 lakh unemployed graduates. Total budgetary commitment for these schemes in 2024-25 alone was Rs 52,009 crore. Karnataka’s GSDP grew at 8.1 percent in FY26, above the national rate of 7.4 percent. The state received USD 9.4 billion in FDI during FY26, accounting for 26.7 percent of India’s total inflows. His 17th budget in March 2026 allocated Rs 47,224 crore for education and Rs 17,817 crore for health. Critics principally BJP State President BY Vijayendra, argued that guarantee spending crowded out capital investment in infrastructure, particularly in North Karnataka and that the state had accumulated unsustainable debt. The 2026-27 budget recorded a revenue deficit of Rs 22,957 crore.
What Comes Next
DK Shivakumar’s ascension shifts Karnataka’s political centre from Siddaramaiah’s rural, subaltern AHINDA base to the Vokkaliga agrarian elite of the Old Mysore region and Bengaluru’s business networks. Managing that transition without fracturing the OBC and Dalit coalition that delivered the 2023 victory is Congress’s central challenge heading to the 2028 assembly elections. The party is considering appointing ST leader Satish Jarkiholi as KPCC president and Dalit leader G Parameshwara as Deputy CM to maintain factional balance. Political analyst Sandeep Shastri of Nitte University noted that the change was inevitable but delayed: “Had the Congress acted at the two-and-a-half-year mark itself, it could have avoided much of the tension and uncertainty.” Prof Harish Ramaswamy called it “a timely move that benefits generational shift.” Siddaramaiah himself, having presented 17 state budgets and completed two full terms, flew to New Delhi the evening of his resignation to meet Rahul Gandhi. He remains an MLA with two years left in his term and an unambiguous intention to remain the most powerful voice in Karnataka Congress that is not the Chief Minister.
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