DK Shivakumar: Congress troubleshooter with uneasy relationship with party

DK Shivakumar, the former Karnataka minister, who was arrested on Tuesday as part of an investigation into an alleged money laundering case was known as a trouble-shooter for some Congress leaders and a liability to some others.

This image preceded the current phase of investigations into his financial matters since August 2017, when the Income Tax Department conducted searches at properties linked to him, his family members, friends, and business associates. It came at a time when he was playing host to MLAs from Gujarat ahead of a crucial Rajya Sabha election in that state.

The lack of sustained support for him from his party unit in the state was evidence of this uneasy relationship between Shivakumar and the Congress. It was not till former chief minister and Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy put out a tweet that the party even swung into action to defend him.

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Both politically and financially, Shivakumar’s career has followed an upward trajectory since his first win in the Sathanur Assembly constituency in 1989. He has won all subsequent elections, shifting to the Kanakapura seat in 2008 after his former constituency ceased to exist as the result of a delimitation exercise.

In just the past 15 years, since 2004, Shivakumar’s financial clout has improved manifold. His election affidavit submitted that year shows that his total assets were around ₹7 crore. By 2018, this had increased to ₹618 crore for him and ₹840 crore including the assets owned by his family members.

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Indeed, Shivakumar’s renown is such that he was initially kept out of the state government, when the Congress swept to power on the back of a majority in the 2013 elections. It was only a year later that former chief minister Siddaramaiah reluctantly inducted him into the state Cabinet.

However, the party has also found it hard to do without Shivakumar, whose brother DK Suresh was the only Congress candidate to win from the state in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year. Additionally, since the waning and subsequent exit of former chief minister SM Krishna, Shivakumar has been the party’s most prominent leader from the Vokkaliga community.

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A fact highlighted by his followers repeatedly. “The party has to go with one of the two dominant communities of Lingayats and Vokkaligas,” said one leader close to him.

His recent attempts at burying the hatchet with the family of former prime minister HD Deve Gowda showed that he was willing to move past rivalry in the southern Karnataka region and broaden his reach to the rest of the state even as some leaders complained that he had left the field for the Gowda family as the Congress won very few seats in the Old Mysuru region.

That attempt failed last year after his attempts at influencing local politics in Belagavi district backfired and earned him the ire of the Jarkiholi family.