DK Shivakumar

Doddalahalli Kempegowda Shivakumar (born 15 May 1962), also known by his initials as D. K. Shivakumar, is an Indian politician who is the 9th and Current Deputy Chief Minister of Karnataka and also Water resources and Bengaluru Development and Town Planning & Bengaluru Urban District Incharge Minister since 20 May 2023 as a member of the Indian National Congress.

He is also the President of the Karnataka PCC since 2020 and was the Working President from 2008 to 2010.He was the cabinet minister in the Government of Karnataka from 2014 to 2019.

He represented the Kanakapura constituency in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly since 2008 and from Sathanur Assembly constituency from 1989 to 2004.

Shivakumar was born to Kempegowda and Gouramma in Kanakapura near Bangalore, Karnataka. He belongs to the Vokkaliga community. He has a younger brother D. K. Suresh who's also a politician.

Shivakumar married Usha in 1993 and has two daughters, Aishwarya and Aabharana, and a son Aakash with her. His oldest daughter is married to Amartya, son of Café Coffee Day founder V. G. Siddhartha.

Shivakumar started his political career in the early 1980s as a student leader and gradually rose through the ranks of the Congress party. He won his first election in 1989 when he was elected to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly from the Sathanur constituency in the Mysuru district.

He was just 27 years old at the time and contested the election on a Congress ticket. Shivakumar went on to win re-election from the same constituency in the subsequent assembly elections in 1994, 1999 and 2004.

He won from Kanakapura constituency in 2008, 2013, 2018 & 2023.Vilasrao Deshmukh, during his tenure as Chief Minister of Maharashtra, worked closely with Shivakumar when he faced the motion of no confidence in 2002. Shivakumar hosted the Maharastra legislators in his resort located on the outskirts of Bangalore for a week until the date of the vote.