List of chief ministers of Karnataka

The Chief Minister of Karnataka is the chief executive of the Indian state of Karnataka. As per the Constitution of India, the governor is a state's "de jure" head, but "de facto" executive authority rests with the chief minister. Following elections to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, the state's governor usually invites the party (or coalition) with a majority of seats to form the government. The governor appoints the chief minister, whose council of ministers are collectively responsible to the assembly. Given that he has the confidence of the assembly, the chief minister's term is for five years and is subject to no term limits.
Since 1947, twenty-two people have been Chief Minister of Mysore (as the state was known before 1 November 1973) or Karnataka. A majority of them belonged to the Indian National Congress party, including inaugural office-holder K. Chengalaraya Reddy. The longest-serving chief minister, D. Devaraj Urs, held the office for over seven years in the 1970s. The Janata Party's Ramakrishna Hegde has the second-longest tenure, while the Congress's Veerendra Patil had the largest gap between two terms (over eighteen years). One chief minister, H. D. Deve Gowda, went on to become the eleventh Prime Minister of India, while another, B. D. Jatti, served as the country's fifth Vice President. There have been six instances of president's rule in Karnataka, most recently in 2007–08.
The incumbent chief minister is the Bharatiya Janata Party's B. S. Yediyurappa, who was sworn in on 26 July 2019.