The Congress's Siddaramaiah has been appointed Karnataka Chief Minister
Congress leader Siddaramaiah has been appointed Chief Minister of Karnataka, days after the party won the assembly election and ejected the BJP from power.
The Congress took a few days to decide on who would be the Chief Minister as both Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar, the Congress's state chief, had expressed interest in the top post.
Siddaramaiah has played a key role in bringing the Congress back to power in last week assembly election.
He entered politics in 1978 when he was elected to the Mysore Taluka Board. He contested the 1983 Karnataka assembly election on a Lok Dal party ticket and won from Chamundeshwari constituency in Mysuru.
Siddaramaiah later joined the Janata Party and retained the Chamundeshwari seat in 1985. He won again in 1994 on a Janata Dal ticket and in 2004 on a Janata Dal (Secular), or JD(S) ticket.
In 2005, he was suspended from the JD(S). A year later, he joined the Congress with his followers. He won the Chamundeshwari by-election in 2007. Mr Siddaramaiah has twice served as Karnataka's Deputy Chief Minister.
Siddaramaiah belongs to the Kuruba community. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Science from Mysore University. He practiced law before entering politics.
The scale of the Congress win in Karnataka is a record in terms of both seats and vote share in over 30 years. The party won 135 seats - 55 more than in 2018 - with a vote share of 42.88 per cent. The closest the Congress came to this score was in 1999 when it won 132 seats and had a vote share of 40.84 per cent. In 1989, it won 178 seats with a vote share of 43.76 per cent.
The BJP won only 66 seats, down from 104 in the 2018 state election. It did not win a single seat reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST) category. Karnataka has 51 reserved constituencies, out of which 36 are for Scheduled Castes (SC) candidates and 15 for ST candidates.