Siddaramaiah to be next Karnataka CM with DKS as his deputy: Congress

After three days of regular meetings, the Congress finally ended the suspense and has announced the party veteran leader Siddaramaiah as the next Karnataka chief minister and its state unit chief D K Shivakumar as his deputy.

The party also announced that D K Shivakumar will continue as Congress Karnataka state president till the Parliamentary elections. 

"We have decided on Siddaramiah as CM of Karnataka; D K Shivakumar will be Deputy CM," said Congress General Secretary K C Venugopal in a press briefing today. 

Newly elected MLAs' will meet this evening in Bengaluru to formally elect new Karnataka CM, while the swearing-in ceremony will be held on May 20.

Venugopal added that the Congress is a democratic party, and believes in consensus, 'not dictatorship'. All Congress leaders, including top leadership, worked very hard to make Karnataka victory a reality, he said.

The Congress was facing a major challenge as both veteran leaders -- Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar were vying for the top post in the state.

On Monday, the three central observers had submitted the report of CLP meeting and their voting through the secret ballot with Kharge.

After several rounds of meeting senior leaders, Kharge finally on intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday finalised the name of Siddaramaiah as the next Karnataka Chief Minister.

Kharge, 81, had held discussion with former party chief Rahul Gandhi, party general secretary K.C. Venugopal and party Karnataka unit in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala, besides the two Karnataka leaders since Monday afternoon.

The Congress had won 135 out of 224 seats in the recently concluded Karnataka Assembly polls whereas the ruling BJP was reduced to 66 and the JD-S to 19 seats.