The state has had 23 chief ministers so far and 16 of them are from the Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities. The figure itself speaks volumes about the dominance of the two communities in the state’s politics, especially the Lingayat community, which has given nine CMs to the state since its reorganization in 1956.
Since independence in 1947, India has had two Karnataka states with different geographical boundaries: the first was as Mysore State until 1956. Confined to the old Mysore kingdom, it was a very small province with Bangalore as its main city. Vokkaligas dominated, centered in present-day southern Karnataka.
The next Karnataka, as it exists today, came into being in 1956, but was known as Mysore until 1973. The Kannada-speaking areas of the five states along with the Mysore region were reorganized under the States Reorganization Act, 1956 under a much larger province. The Lingayat community has become its largest voter block.
While the Congress dominated state politics till 1983, the Janata Party formed the first non-Congress government in the same year, followed by the Janata Dal government in 1994. The rise of the BJP began in 2008.
Lingayat-Vokkaliga Chief Minister
The first three chief ministers of the state till 1956 were Vokkaliga leaders of the Congress. The first Chief Minister of Mysore, K. Chengalarayi Reddy, was sworn in on October 25, 1947. He was also a member of the Constituent Assembly of India.
He was replaced by Kengal Hanumanthaiah on March 30, 1952, remaining in office for four years and five months. He was one of the most vocal voices for the establishment of an expanded Karnataka state. The third chief minister Kadidal Manjappa was in office for only 74 days in 1956 – the year the state was reorganised.
The Lingayat community was the single most powerful voting block in the enlarged state. Dominant in northern and central Karnataka, the next four chief ministers till 1971 came from this community. All of them belonged to the Congress.
S Nijalingappa became the Chief Minister on 1 November 1956. A member of the Constituent Assembly, he was a freedom fighter and always advocated the formation of a large Kannada speaking state. His first term lasted just one year and six months, but the second lasted more than five years, from June 1962 to May 1968. He remained in office for five years and 11 months, thus becoming the first CM to complete five years. When the Congress expelled the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in November 1969, Nijalingappa was the national president of the party.
BD Jatti, who later became the Deputy Speaker, was in office from March 1958 to March 1962, followed by SR Kanthi, who was CM for only 99 days and was replaced by Nijalingappa for a second term in June 1962.
After Nijalingappa, Virendra Patil became the Chief Minister on 29 May 1968. His first term lasted for two years and 19 months. Karnataka was put under President’s Rule for a year, while Patil’s second term came after 18 years in 1989, but came to a quick and unceremonious end.
Party factionalism and communal riots in the state unit prompted Rajiv Gandhi to sack him from the office of chief minister. Patil was seen as Nijalingappa’s successor and his removal alienated the once-loyal Lingayats from the Congress, a voter base that has since been nurtured and promoted by the BJP.
In March 1972, D Devaraj Urs of the Congress became the first non-Lingayat and non-Vokkaliga chief minister, replacing Patil. In turn, he was replaced in 1980 by R Gundu Rao, the state’s first Brahmin chief minister from the Congress. Karnataka got its first non-Congress government in 1983. Ramakrishna Hegde of the Janata Party, a Brahmin leader, remained chief minister. Office till 1988. His tenure was followed by Janata Party Lingayat leader SR Bommai, father of current CM Basavaraj Bommai till 1989.
The state got its next Vokkaliga chief minister in 1994. HD Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal took office on 11 December 1994 and vacated the office with his elevation as Prime Minister on 31 May 1996. He was replaced by Janata Dal Lingayat leader JH Patel, who was the CM from May 1996 to October 1999.
The Congress won the next election in the state and replaced the Lingayat chief minister with Vokkaliga leader SM Krishna, who held the position from October 1999 to May 2004. He was replaced by another Congress leader N Dharam Singh, who was from the OBC (Other Backward Classes) category.
Singh was replaced by HD Kumaraswamy of the Janata Dal (Secular). A Vokkaliga leader and son of former CM HD Deve Gowda, he was in office for one year and eight months from February 3, 2006 to October 8, 2007, during his first chief ministerial tenure.
After 36 days of President’s rule, the next five years saw the BJP in the corridors of power with three chief ministers – two from the Lingayat community and one Vokkaliga leader. BS Yeddyurappa (BSY) became the first BJP CM of the state, but held office for only eight days between 12 and 17 November 2007. After this, President’s rule continued for five months. He returned to the Chief Minister’s office on 30 May 2008 and this time his tenure lasted for three years and two months. He was in office till August 4, 2011, before resigning on corruption charges.
Yediyurappa was replaced by Vokkaliga leader DV Sadananda Gowda, who held the position from August 2011 to July 2012. He was replaced by Lingayat BJP leader Jagadish Shettar, who was the CM till May 2013. Siddaramaiah of the Congress replaced Shettar after the 2013 assembly elections. Siddaramaiah, an OBC leader, ruled the state till 2018.
In the next assembly elections of 2018, BJP emerged as the single largest party but could not get majority in the assembly. BSY decided to form the government but he remained in the chief minister’s office for only seven days as he could not get the required numbers to prove his majority.
A coalition government of the JD(S) and the Congress was then formed with Vokkaliga leader Kumaraswamy serving a second term as chief minister. The coalition government fell in July 2019 as 15 rebel MLAs resigned and the government lost a trust vote.
The BJP formed the next government under Yediyurappa, who had to resign after two years on July 26, 2021. The reasons for his resignation were ill health and old age, but factionalism in the party and growing discontent against his style of functioning cannot be ruled out. He was replaced by Basavaraj Bommai, another Lingayat leader of the BJP, who assumed office on July 28, 2021.
Non-Lingayat, Non-Vokkaliga OBC Chief Minister
In 1972, the state got its first chief minister from a backward caste. Congress’s D Devaraj Urs, who renamed Mysore state to Karnataka in 1973, belonged to the Kshatriya caste. He belonged to the Arasu community, a sub-caste of the Wodeyar Maharaja of Mysore. Thus he was a forward caste leader when he became the Chief Minister. The Arasu community was given backward class reservation in 1977 but was later removed from the OBC list. He was finally given backward class 2A reservation in January 2012.
He was the first leader in the state to champion electoral social engineering, effectively using a combination of OBCs, Dalits and minorities to win elections – an engineering later followed by Siddaramaiah. He was the second CM of the state to complete five years after Nijalingappa, who was in office from March 1972 to December 1977. He again returned as CM after two months of President’s Rule but his tenure lasted only for one year and 10 months. He was also the first CM to be elected for the second consecutive term.
S Bangarappa, again a Congress leader, was the second OBC chief minister of the state and came from a humble background. Hailing from the backward Ediga community, he can be said to be the first OBC CM from a “genuine” backward community. The Ediga are traditionally involved in toddy tapping. He was in office from October 1990 to November 1992.
Another OBC leader of the Congress, M Veerappa Moily, was fielded in Bangarappa’s place. He was an eminent lawyer and CM for two years till December 1994. From the Devadiga community, he emerged as a prominent political figure in state and national politics. Members of the Devadiga community are involved in agriculture apart from temple work and music.
The state’s fourth OBC chief minister was Rajput Congress leader N Dharam Singh. Rajputs, though counted as upper castes in many states, receive OBC reservation in Karnataka. He was on the CM’s chair from May 2004 to February 2006. Popularly known as Ajatshatru, with very few political enemies in his five-decade-long political career, he led a coalition government of Congress and JD(S).
Siddaramaiah, the state’s fifth OBC CM, was from the Kuruba community, which is estimated to constitute about 7 per cent of the state’s population and is traditionally involved in sheep and goat rearing. The Congress contested the 2013 assembly elections under his leadership, and like Urs, Siddaramaiah strategically used the ‘Dalit-OBC-minority’ factor as an effective tool in his campaign. Being the CM from May 2013 to May 2018, he became the third CM of the state to complete five years in office.
two brahmin chief ministers
The state got its first Brahmin Chief Minister in 1980. Congress’s R Gundu Rao became the youngest Chief Minister of the state at the age of 43. Considered a favorite of Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi, he was chosen instead for the Urs. It is said that his style of functioning and poor governance were behind the defeat of the Congress in the 1983 assembly elections.
This Brahmin chief minister was replaced by another Brahmin chief minister on January 10, 1983, with the swearing in of Ramakrishna Hegde of the Janata Party. Known to be an efficient administrator, his five years as Chief Minister of the state till August 1988 were divided into three distinct periods. Earlier a Congress leader, he became the first non-Congress Chief Minister of the state. Hegde is also the second chief minister of the state after Urs to retain power in a subsequent election and did so twice – first in 1985 and again in 1986.
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