Bengaluru, Dec 25 (PTI) The leadership squabble between Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivakumar and its ripple effects in the ruling Congress dominated Karnataka's political discourse
in the fag end of 2025, which also saw a tragedy unfold on June 4 when cricket enthusiasts reveling in RCB's maiden IPL triumph were crushed in a deadly stampede, leaving 11 dead and many injured.
The state also hogged limelight as literatteur Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi received the prestigious Booker prize for the former's book "Heart lamp". Incidentally, Mushtaq was caught in a political row when the opposition BJP protested the government's decision to pick her to inaugurate the Mysuru Dasara, a marquee with a great tourism potential.
The opposition had demanded Mushtaq to clarify her position on the Kannada language and Goddess Chamundeshwari.
The matter ultimately reached the Supreme Court which dismissed a plea challenging the Karnataka government's decision to invite the International Booker Prize winner to inaugurate Mysuru Dasara this year.
Leadership issues continued to pester the Congress leadership in the state as well as the central high command.
While Siddaramaiah asserted that he would continue to hold the coveted post for a full five years term, Shivakumar loyalists had predicted a leadership change by November 20, when the Congress reached its half-way mark of the five year tenure.
Subsequent open stance by supporters of either leaders in public put the leadership in a spot of bother, before it pitched in a breakfast diplomacy idea to break the logjam.
As a result, Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah hosted each other for breakfast, showing signs of thaw. However the issue once again came to the fore during the Karnataka Legislature's brief Belagavi session in December.
The "breakfast diplomacy" could not cut the ice as the leadership row continues.
In June, what was supposed to be a gathering to celebrate the Royal Challengers Bengaluru winning its maiden IPL title, in minutes turned out to be a tragedy.
A stampede killed 11 persons and injured 50 others outside the city's M Chinnaswamy Stadium, prompting authorities to ban holding of any matches there.
The opposition BJP faced its own in-house issues in 2025.
Vijayapura MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal continued his tirade against party stalwart and former Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa and his sons– Shikaripura MLA B Y Vijayendra (state BJP president) and Shivamogga MP B Y Raghavendra.
The party cracked the whip and expelled veteran Yatnal for six years in March and removed two more MLAs and former Ministers S T Somashekar and Arabail Shivaram Hebbarfrom the party for siding with their "parent party Congress".
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah presented the budget for a record 16th time. The size of the budget for 2025-26 was Rs 4.09 lakh crore.
The governance of the state capital underwent its most radical change on May 15, when the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act officially came into force dividing the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike into five municipal corporations.
In August, the ruling Congress dealt with its own internal fallout. Cooperation Minister K N Rajanna, considered close to the chief minister, was abruptly sacked from the cabinet for blaming his own government for its failure resulting in vote theft in Mahadevapura assembly segment during the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Caught in the longstanding Cauvery water-sharing dispute with Tamil Nadu, Karnataka secured a major legal victory when the Supreme Court dismissed the neighbour's plea against the Mekedatu balancing reservoir project as 'premature'. The project envisages the twin objective of meeting the ever expanding Bengaluru's drinking water needs as well as generate hydro electricity.
Karnataka became the first southern state to pass an anti-hate speech legislation in December. The Karnataka Hate Speech and Hate Crimes (Prevention) Bill, 2025 introduced jail terms of up to seven years. Now, Telangana wants to follow suit.
This was followed by the Karnataka Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Bill, a landmark law aimed at criminalising the practice of informal village councils imposing social bans.
On the crime and law and order front, the state witnessed armed robbery in Bidar where two people suspected to be from Bihar robbed Rs 83 lakh cash, which was meant for filling the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) and shot dead a staff who resisted the robbery.
Police cracked a Rs seven crore robbery by a gang headed by a police constable in Bengaluru in November. All the accused involved in the case were arrested.
In Davanagere, two sub-inspectors were among seven persons arrested on charges of gold robbery on November 26.
Former Hassan MP and grandson of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, Prajwal Revanna was given life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh in sexual assault case on August 2.
In a high profile gold smuggling case, Harshavardhini Ranya Rao, the stepdaughter of a Director General of Police rank officer was arrested with 14.2 kg of the precious metal upon her arrival from Dubai, which she had visited 27 times in a short period.
Veteran south Indian actor B Saroja Devi and ruling Congress MLA Shamanuru Shivashankarappa, one of the senior most politicians in the country, died in 2025. PTI GMS SA
