BD NarayankarBengaluru, June 3 -- Karnataka, on Wednesday, changed not just its Chief Minister but, in a quieter sense, the grammar of its politics as DK Shivakumar was sworn in at Lok Bhavan, stepping into a chair that has never quite been a seat of comfort in a state where caste arithmetic often matters more than cabinet arithmetic.
The ceremony at Lok Bhavan, where he assumed charge along with a 13-member Council of Ministers, had all the outward order of state function, but beneath it lay the familiar churn of compromise, calculation and carefully balanced silences that define Karnataka's political theatre.
Few political careers in modern Karnataka illustrate the long arc from ward-level activism to the Chief Minister's chair as vivid...