Newsmaker: Meet Cong leader D K Shivakumar, the 'crisis man' in Karnataka

Shivakumar first grabbed the headlines when he contested community strongman H D Deve Gowda in the 1985 Assembly election

Despite the flurry of activity on a rain-battered evening on Wednesday when the Janata Dal (S)-Congress coalition government took the oath of office, one must-do on Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s list was a one-on-one meeting with D K Shivakumar. 

The reasons are obvious. After being bypassed for the post of deputy chief minister in the new government, the Vokkaliga strongman was sulking – messages about his dejection were being conveyed to the party through his confidants, though he maintained a stoic front in public. During the meeting, Gandhi is understood to have assured Shivakumar that the party high command was