Siddaramaiah (born 3 August 1947),[6] also referred to by his nickname Siddu,[a] is an Indian politician who is serving as the 22nd chief minister of Karnataka from 20 May 2023.

[7] He also held that position previously from 2013 to 2018, being only the second person in the history of Karnataka state to hold that office for a full five-year term after D. Devaraj Urs.

[11][12][13] Siddaramaiah was born to Siddarame Gowda and Boramma at a remote village called Siddaramanahundi in Varuna Hobli near T. Narasipura of Mysore district in a farming family.

[24] Siddaramaiah's political career began when Nanjunda Swamy, a lawyer in Mysore, spotted him at the district courts as a law graduate.

In Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde's government, he handled diverse portfolios such as Sericulture, Animal Husbandry and Transport at different stages.

[30] He subsequently garnered mass support from the backward classes and joined the Congress at a large public meeting held in Bangalore, in Sonia Gandhi's presence.

He lost in Chamundeshwari, but won in Badami vidhan sabha seat beating BJP heavyweight Sriramulu with a narrow margin of 1,696 votes and he was reelected for the 8th time.

After the resignation of 17 MLAs, leading to the downfall of the coalition government, Siddaramaiah took the leadership of the upcoming by-elections in Karnataka.

[39][40] He led the Indian National Congress to victory by achieving an absolute majority of 122/224 seats in the 2013 Legislative Assembly election.

[46] His council of ministers was named the following week and was reported that he would hold finance, cabinet affairs and all unallocated portfolios.

[47] His cabinet approved reverting changes by the previous BJP government in school textbooks, which included removing lessons on RSS founder K. B. Hedgewar and Hindutva figure Vinayak Damodar Savarkar,[48] launched a scheme providing free bus rides to women in the Karnataka state buses[49] and announced implementation of other four pre-poll guarantees in the state budget.

He increased taxes on liquor, beer, stamp duty and registration of properties, and certain vehicle categories to fund the above-mentioned schemes.

This idea received large opposition from people like Mohandas Pia, Kiran Mazumdar and others and hence the passing of the bill was postponed.

[8] In July 2023, the state witnessed series of killings which included an on-duty police constable crushed to death by a sand mafia truck,[52] Jain monk Nandhi Maharaj from Belgaum, a worker named Venugopal in T. Narasipur and a double murder of CEO and MD of a company in Bangalore.

[54] In July 2024, his cabinet minister B. Nagendra was accused of money transfers of around ₹187 crores into various bank accounts from the SC-ST Valmiki funds, in a suicide victim's death note.

[59][60] This led to a wide row and the opposition parties demanded his resignation by conducting a march from Bangalore to Mysore.

[61] Further on 17 August the governor Thawar Chand gehlot issued a prosecution notice against the chief minister to proceed investigations, based on these alleged irregularities.