D K Shivakumar sworn in as Karnataka chief minister with a 13-member cabinet

D K Shivakumar was sworn in as chief minister of Karnataka on the afternoon of June 3, together with a first batch of 13 ministers, in a ceremony on the lawns of the Lok Bhavan administered by Governor Thawarchand Gehlot. The Indian Express reported him as the state's 24th chief minister.

Shivakumar, 64, has been the president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee since 2023 and led the party to a majority of 135 seats in the 224-member assembly. He became the leader of the Congress Legislature Party on May 30, after the central leadership asked Siddaramaiah — in office since May 20, 2023 — to step down on May 26.

G Parameshwara, 74, returned to the cabinet as deputy chief minister. Yathindra Siddaramaiah, the outgoing chief minister's son, was among those sworn in. Before taking the oath, Shivakumar made courtesy visits to H D Deve Gowda, B S Yediyurappa and Siddaramaiah, and he took the oath in the name of his late mentor, whom he refers to as Ajjaya. The first batch was drawn almost entirely from the Siddaramaiah cabinet, with two exceptions: Yathindra Siddaramaiah, 45, a member of the Legislative Council and former MLA from Mysuru, and the former assembly speaker U T Khader.

The people of Karnataka have faith in me. I will take every section of society together, including farmers, women and the youth. A new youth era will begin in Karnataka.

What the new government inherits

The handover closes one chapter of Karnataka politics and opens another. The state's institutional controversies have not paused for it: the fiscal white paper tabled by the opposition has argued that the state's debt position requires structural repair, a point the new cabinet will have to answer in the budget it inherits.

• Shivakumar was elected leader of the Congress Legislature Party on May 30, 2026.
• Siddaramaiah had served as chief minister from May 20, 2023, and completed three years in office on that date.
• A 13-member first batch of ministers took office alongside him on June 3.
• The Congress won 135 of 224 assembly seats in 2023 under Shivakumar's leadership.
• Only two of the 13 new ministers are new to the cabinet: Yathindra Siddaramaiah and U T Khader.

The immediate political question is not the swearing-in but the arithmetic around it. A chief minister who led the party to a 135-seat majority does not need to manufacture consent, which is why the departure of a three-year-old government without a contest is the detail worth watching rather than the ceremony itself. The composition of the new cabinet makes the arithmetic explicit: a Vokkaliga chief minister replacing an OBC one, with three Dalit ministers — G Parameshwara, who took his oath in the name of Dr Ambedkar, Priyank Kharge and K H Muniyappa — and Ramalinga Reddy and Krishna Byregowda among the Vokkaligas. The Indian Express reported the transition as the fruition of a power-sharing arrangement informally sealed by the party leadership after the 2023 result, which is what a continuity-heavy cabinet looks like in practice.