Published May 14, 2026 | 7:09 AM ⚊ Updated May 14, 2026 | 7:20 AM
KC Venugopal.
Synopsis: Ten days after the results of the Kerala Assembly elections were declared, the Congress-led UDF is expected to announce KC Venugopal as the chief minister of Kerala. In securing the nod of the Congress high command, Venugopal pipped two other serious contenders — VD Satheesan and Ramesh Chennithala.
It’s Kozhummal Chattadi Venugopal, KC, as he is popularly known.
Hours from now, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary in charge of the organisation, and a sitting Member of Parliament, is expected to be chosen as the next Chief Minister of Kerala.
At the parliamentary party meeting scheduled for 1 pm on Thursday, 14 May, KC’s name, written down on a sheet of paper and put in a sealed cover as is the Congress tradition, will be revealed to the Congress MLAs-elect by the party observers at Indira Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala.
After an hour-long discussion between Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday, the latter handed over the sealed cover to party leaders reaching the Kerala capital as observers.
In securing the nod of the Congress high command, Venugopal pipped two other serious contenders — VD Satheesan and Ramesh Chennithala, primarily Satheesan.
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Sixty-three-year-old Venugopal, who represents the Alappuzha Lok Sabha segment and did not fight the recent Assembly elections, will have to contest in a by-election and get elected to the Assembly within the stipulated six months.
Amidst intense lobbying by rival camps, Congress leaders at the national level spent hours and days finalising the chief minister candidate ever since the party romped home in the Kerala Assembly election, the results of which were announced on 4 May.
The issue witnessed even the Congress leadership getting divided. Rahul Gandhi, who has been relying heavily on KC in dealing with party affairs in different states, reportedly backed his candidature. His sister and MP from Kerala, Priyanka Gandhi, however, voted for Satheesan.
The matter finally reached former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the person to make the final call on any important matter. On her suggestion, Rahul Gandhi then sat down with Kharge, where the choice was sealed.
While it’s a fact that the majority of the 63 Congress MLAs-elect preferred Venugopal, it is also true that Satheesan has been the popular choice among party supporters.
The argument among the party cadres was that Satheesan was the one who toiled hard and guided the party to victory, while Venugopal largely confined himself to national politics.
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On 13 May, anonymous posters sprang up at multiple locations in Kerala stating that the Congress will pay a heavy price if an “outsider” (referring to Venugopal) is chosen as the chief minister. The posters even threatened that it would lead to the defeat of Priyanka Gandhi in the future election in Wayanad.
Congress’s allies, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), sailed with Satheesan, strongly arguing that he should be the natural choice. IUML’s support is critical for Priyanka in Wayanad, and so also for the Congress in the entire northern belt of Kerala.
Venugopal, according to insiders, kept the MLAs-elect on his side, first by playing a role in their selection as party candidates to contest the election and later providing them with resources to put up a good fight. He also had the party leaders at the district level firmly in his control.
Satheesan, on the other hand, is not known for political manoeuvring, even as he is credited with doing tireless work to revive the Congress and counter the Left Front, which had ruled the State for 10 consecutive years.
What kind of formula the Congress leadership will come up with to keep KC’s rivals, Satheesan and Ramesh Chennithala, happy remains to be seen.
Congress-led UDF won 102 seats in Kerala’s 140-member Legislative Assembly.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
