Bengaluru, March 10 Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar hosted a dinner party at a five-star hotel in the city on Tuesday to celebrate the completion of six years as the Congress state president.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, his cabinet colleagues, and many MLAs attended the dinner party.
As Shivakumar welcomed the CM upon his arrival, the latter greeted him with a bouquet and congratulated him for completing six years as the KPCC president.
Shivakumar was appointed as the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president on March 11, 2020.
He assumed office when the state unit was facing challenges.
The party had lost the assembly elections after five years of Congress rule from 2013 to 2018. In the face of a hung assembly, it formed a coalition government with Janata Dal (Secular), led by its ally's second-in-command H D Kumaraswamy.
The government lasted only for a year from May 2018 to June 2019. After the fall of the coalition government, BJP, led by B S Yediyurappa, came to power.
Following the defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Siddaramaiah and Dinesh Gundu Rao had resigned as the leader of the Congress Legislative Party and Congress state president, respectively.
Displaying his organizational skills, Shivakumar strengthened the party's ranks. Under his leadership, the Congress defeated the ruling BJP with a significant majority in the 2023 assembly elections, winning 134 seats in the 224-member House.
Currently, the Congress government has 140 MLAs, including support from independent members.
The Congress also managed to increase its representation from just one seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha election to nine MPs in 2024.
There has been a power struggle between Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar. However, the two leaders often present a united front.