“Everyone is a team, I’m not alone. We all are together and we will work together,” Mr Shivakumar said after his appointment, according to news agency ANI.

Outgoing KPCC (Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee) President Mr Rao had resigned from his post last year soon after the party’s dismal performance in December by-polls, in which 11 former Congress and JDS rebel MLAs were re-elected to the seats from which they had resigned and triggered the fall of a Congress-JDS coalition in the state.

Confirmation of Mr Shivakumar’s appointment came shortly after four-time Madhya Pradesh Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia joined the BJP in a shock move that has left the 15-month-old Kamal Nath government on the brink of collapse.

Mr Scindia’s resignation and crossover came amid rumblings from within the Congress over the manner in which young leaders were being side-lined in favour of veteran politicians.

However, DK Shivakumar, who led the Congress-JDS government’s fight for survival last year as he tracked down rebel MLAs to a hotel in Mumbai, will have more to worry about than the condition of Karnataka Congress.

Mr Shivakumar is facing corruption charges and even spent time in Delhi’s Tihar Jail; he had been jailed over allegations of money laundering and was released on a bond of Rs 25 lakhs.

There are those who believe the crisis that led to the Congress losing power in Karnataka in July last year was because one of the first MLAs who rebelled – Ramesh Jarkiholi – was upset over what he felt was interference by Mr Shivakumar in his home district of Belagavi in north Karnataka.

Shivakumar is a man for all seasons for the Congress. He reached the top of state politics by fighting the Gowda family in their stronghold. His long battle with the Gowdas is legendary.

The Vokkaliga leader won his first assembly election in 1989 from Sathanur in Kanakapura taluk. When S Bangarappa became the CM in 1990, he recognised Shivakumar’s talent and made him a junior minister with the ‘prisons and home guards’ portfolio. Even though the portfolio was insignificant, DK caught the attention of the top brass because of his leadership skills and spunk. He was just 29 years old and that mattered a lot.
When the HD Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal came to power in 1994, Shivakumar was one of the very few who survived the storm. He fought a battle with the Gowdas even when Deve Gowda was the Prime Minister.

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“The BJP is misusing the I-T, ED and CBI as a pretext against its political opponents… no such revenge politics has ever been seen in the history of the country. Such incidents have spiked after Narendra Modi  became the Prime Minister for the second term,” said the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) in a series of tweets.

The ED arrested the 57-year-old Congress troubleshooter on Tuesday after four days of interrogation in the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, and sought his remand for custodial questioning on the grounds that he was evasive in replies and non-cooperative in responding to a number of questions.

“@DKShivakumar is being punished for blocking operation ‘Kamala‘ and preventing (the) BJP from snatching power. He had also pulled off a prestigious RS (Rajya Sabha) election win in Gujarat from under the nose of (its national president) Amit Shah. No wonder DKS was arrested. Hardcore criminals are in power now! #ReleaseDK,” tweeted the Congress Seva Dal.

Noting that such incidents like the arrest of Shivakumar and its other senior leader P. Chidambaram by the CBI on August 21 put the country’s democratic system at risk, Rao said there was need for everyone to work together to convince the people of the truth.

Though the ED counsel sought 14-day custody of Shivakumar, Special Judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar allowed only 10 days’ remand till September 13, observing that the income of the accused had a “phenomenal growth” while he was in important place.

Shivakumar was a senior cabinet minister for energy in the Congress government from 2013-2018 and Water Resources in the 14-month JD-S-Congress coalition government from May 23, 2018 to July 23, 2019.

In his nomination to the Election Commission for contesting in the 2018 state assembly elections, Shivakumar declared in an affidavit that he and his family had a whopping Rs 840-crore worth assets, including lands, houses, investments, bank balances and properties as against Rs 251 crore he had before the 2013 assembly elections, a staggering 235 per cent jump in 5 years.

Raids on his residential and official premises in early August 2017 led to recovery of incriminating documents, files, records and Rs 8.6-crore unaccounted cash in his Delhi flat, indicating illegal transactions in crores of rupees. Refuting the Congress tirade, BJP general secretary B.L. Santosh said for the grand old party, democracy is in ICU (intensive care unit) when its leaders face probe

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