The protracted tussle over government leadership in Karnataka appears to be drawing to a close, with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday announcing that he will be resigning and making way for DK Shivakumar to assume the reins.Siddaramaiah made the announcement at the breakfast meeting he held with the Cabinet colleagues at his official residence in Bengaluru.The announcement was greeted with cheers by the supporters of Shivakumar, the prominent Vokkaliga leader of the Congress and the state unit chief.The announcement came after several months of deliberations capped by a final round of meetings in Delhi where Siddaramaiah was convinced to step down and accept a Central role as a Rajya Sabha MP.The leaders of Congress are learnt to have reminded Siddaramaiah of the promise of CM-ship rotation after two-and-a-half years of government. This period ended in November 2025 and Shivakumar’s supporters had been exerting pressure on the Congress to make the switch.Siddaramaiah is expected to address the press on his decision and later send resignation to Governor Thawarchand Gehlot.Interestingly, ahead of resigning, Siddaramaiah accepted the much-awaited report of caste census in Karnaraka.This has revealed that Vokkaligas and Lingayats are no longer the state’s dominant communities. The most dominant are SCs followed by Muslims, Lingayatats, Vokkaligas, Kurubas and STs in that order.Siddaramaiah is an OBC Kuruba leader, a popular mass face in the state, and it remains to be seen how Rahul Gandhi negotiates the Congress politics after asking senior OBC stalwart Siddaramaiah to make way for an upper caste Shivakumar.Rahul’s recent politics has centred on the OBC matrix and he has often questioned the BJP in Parliament as to how many OBC CMs the party has.Now, after Rahul has himself stamped the replacement of an OBC CM in Karnataka, the BJP is sure to make it a poll and political issue.The Congress had won Karnataka in 2023.