Siddaramaiah on Thursday informed his Cabinet colleagues that he will step down as the Karnataka chief minister, signalling the start of a leadership transition within the Congress government that is expected to elevate deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar to the top post.Siddaramaiah (centre) with DK Shivakumar to his right during the meeting with Karnataka ministers in Bengaluru on Thursday. (HT Photo)According to party leaders familiar with the discussions, Siddaramaiah made the announcement during a breakfast meeting at Cauvery, the chief minister’s official residence in Bengaluru, attended by Shivakumar and senior ministers, including Priyank Kharge, KJ George, MB Patil, Ramalinga Reddy and HK Patil.Security around the residence was tightened as ministers and party leaders arrived through the morning.People aware of the meeting said Siddaramaiah told ministers that he intended to formally submit his resignation later in the day. He also informed them that a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party would soon be convened to elect a new leader of the Assembly and the next chief minister.Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Karnataka home minister G Parameshwara said Siddaramaiah had invited ministers to thank them before demitting office.“The Chief Minister has called all the ministers for breakfast and before he resigns, he wants to thank all the ministers for their cooperation,” Parameshwara said, indicating that Siddaramaiah’s resignation was imminent.“I am not aware whether he was offered a position in Delhi; it is up to the high command,” he added.The developments followed several rounds of discussions in New Delhi involving Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar and the Congress leadership. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi are understood to have separately met both leaders as the party worked out a leadership arrangement ahead of next month’s Rajya Sabha elections.Although neither the Congress leadership nor Raj Bhavan had made a formal announcement by Thursday morning, senior party leaders privately acknowledged that a transfer of power was imminent.Questions over the timing of the resignation remained because Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot was away from Bengaluru. Officials said he had left for Indore late on Wednesday night because of a family emergency and no confirmed return schedule had been communicated till Thursday morning.Officials in the chief minister’s office (CMO), however, said Siddaramaiah intended to send his resignation to the governor’s office.The closed-door meeting came amid growing indications within the Congress that the leadership had settled on Shivakumar as Siddaramaiah’s successor, though no official confirmation had been issued.At the centre of the internal negotiations has been Shivakumar’s longstanding claim that a power-sharing understanding was reached after the Congress victory in the 2023 assembly elections.