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What is the story about?
Siddaramaiah, often referred to as Sidda or Siddu, a lecturer who has been holding on to the post of the 16th chief minister of Karnataka since May 2023, is stepping down, confirmed xxx after months of meetings and meet-ups. His number 2, DK Shivakumar, is stepping up as the new CM after taking the ‘blessings’ of the outgoing CM. And with this change in guards, the southern state is once again doing what it does best, changing chief ministers before the term ends. And before any party jumps in to take potshots at the Congress, let’s put the facts out in the open that this phenomenon is not party-specific. It doesn't matter which party holds power; It doesn't matter whether the mandate was clear or fractured. The chair of Karnataka's CM has,
in the past 70 years of its statehood, dethroned nearly every leader who sat in it before their terms ran out officially. Congress's Siddaramaiah, BJP's BS Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai, JDS's HD Kumaraswamy – the list of those who didn't last the full five years is longer, barring the three who managed to touch the finish line of their term – and interestingly, all three belonged to Congress. The chair of Karnataka's chief minister, it seems so, is less a seat of power and more a countdown clock.
The Three Who Survived the Full Five
S. Nijalingappa (1962–68)S. Nijalingappa's first stint as Karnataka Chief Minister, from 1956 to 1958, ended like the rest – before time. But he came back in 1962 and this time completed his full term through a period when Congress still had genuine dominance in the state and exited office in May 1968, when he was elevated to the All India Congress Committee national president.D. Devaraj Urs (1972–77)Devaraj Urs started off with a crack code to the CM’s chair. He completed a full five-year term from March 1972 to December 1977. He contested again and won in 1978. Urs, who was known for his land reforms, kept a fractious Congress together through five difficult years in his first term. But even he couldn’t escape the jinx, and his second term fell apart when the Congress split, his faction on one side, Indira Gandhi's Congress (I) on the other. As MLAs drifted to the Gandhi camp, his majority collapsed. He resigned in January 1980, with R. Gundu Rao stepping in to replace him. He never came back.One note here – Siddaramaiah did break one record – in January 2026, he crossed Devaraj Urs's total days in office across both their terms combined, becoming Karnataka's longest-serving Chief Minister by that measure. But there is a record Urs still holds that nobody has touched. He is the only chief minister in Karnataka's history to complete a full five-year term and then go back to voters and win again. That remains his alone.Siddaramaiah (2013–18)His first term ran the full five years, the first Karnataka chief minister to do so since Devaraj Urs, four decades earlier. But, just like Urs, his second term is ending on May 28, 2026, roughly two years before the finish line. The MUDA case — in which the Mysuru Urban Development Authority allegedly allotted fourteen prime housing sites to Siddaramaiah's wife as compensation for land worth far less — dogged his second term from mid-2024, with the governor, Thaawarchand Gehlot sanctioning his prosecution and the Lokayukta registering a case against him. Then came the internal power dynamics. A power-sharing arrangement quietly agreed upon when Congress formed the government in 2023, which Siddaramaiah spent two years deflecting, finally caught up with him. The high command has acted. DK Shivakumar, who waited with visible patience and controlled ambition, gets the chair today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuD6qiDxY-g
But for every Nijalingappa, every Devaraj Urs, everySiddaramaiah who crossed the line, the list of those who could never close on the finish line is far longer.Ramakrishna Hegde (1983–88)The first non-Congress chief minister of Karnataka, Ramakrishna Hegde, took over in January 1983. He resigned on moral grounds in December 1984 after the Janata Party's poor Lok Sabha showing, sought a fresh mandate – and he did win in March 1985 and came back as CM. In August 1988, he resigned over phone-tapping allegations that his government had wiretapped politicians and businessmen. His deputy SR Bommai took over as CM.
SR Bommai (1988–89)Less than nine months. That's how long Bommai lasted. He took charge in August 1988. By April 1989, the Governor had dismissed his government, citing loss of majority following large-scale engineered defections. Bommai challenged the dismissal in the Supreme Court — and while he lost the immediate battle, the case produced the landmark S.R. Bommai v. Union of India judgment that placed lasting constitutional limits on the misuse of Article 356. His tenure lasted eight months. His legal legacy lasted decades.Veerendra Patil (1989–90)Came to power after the 1989 elections with a clear Congress majority. Left within ten months — not because of a political crisis, but because of failing health. He was replaced by Bangarappa. Then Veerappa Moily. Three Chief Ministers in a single five-year assembly term. Karnataka was already showing the world who was in charge of its politics — and it wasn't the Chief Ministers.H.D. Deve Gowda (1994–96)Deve Gowda left willingly — and with good reason. He walked out of the Karnataka CM's chair in May 1996 to become Prime Minister of India. His Deputy, J.H. Patel, moved up and held the fort for the remaining three years of that assembly's term, navigating a turbulent Janata Dal split along the way. Patel completed what was left of the 1994 mandate — but it was a borrowed tenure, not a full elected term of his own. Karnataka lost a Chief Minister to Delhi. The state, by then, was getting used to losing them for all sorts of reasons.B.S. Yediyurappa — Four Shots, Zero Full TermsProbably nobody in Karnataka political would have tried more than Mr BS Yediyurappa to get hold of the CM chair and hold on to it. Interestingly, he got it four times but couldn’t complete any of the terms. The first, in November 2007, lasted seven days. The third, in May 2018, lasted six, he resigned before the confidence vote, having done the numbers and found them short. His longest run was from 2008 to 2011, which ended after the mining corruption allegations. The fourth and final, from July 2019 to July 2021, ended when the BJP itself tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to make way for others. H.D. Kumaraswamy (2006–07, 2018–19)HD Kumaraswamy sat in the chair twice. Both times it slipped away. His first term grew out of a power-sharing arrangement with the BJP after the 2006 hung verdict, the deal was that he would hand over the chief ministership midway through. When the moment came, he refused to vacate the chair, and the coalition fell apart. He was out by October 2007. His second shot came after the fractured 2018 election, heading a Congress-JD(S) government that everyone knew was fragile from day one. It held for fourteen months. Then seventeen MLAs walked across to the BJP in what the country came to know as Operation Lotus. The confidence motion was called. The government lost it. Kumaraswamy’s second stint as CM was over.Basavaraj Bommai (2021–23)B. Bommai walked into a government that was already past its halfway mark. He took over from Yediyurappa in July 2021 without a fresh mandate, steadied the ship through the remaining months, and then led the BJP into the 2023 election. Congress beat the BJP convincingly. He left without ever having governed on his terms, on his own mandate, from the beginning. Another Karnataka Chief Minister who came in mid-sentence and never got to finish it.Why Karnataka Keeps Doing ThisStart with what this is not. It is not a story about politicians who were out of their depth. Yediyurappa spent decades building the BJP into a force in Karnataka that simply did not exist before him — you do not do that without knowing exactly how power works. Siddaramaiah ran a full five-year term in his first stint and delivered one of the more ambitious welfare agendas any Karnataka government has attempted. These were not accidental leaders. They knew the game. The chair got them anyway.Kumaraswamy is no political novice. And yet.
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