The Congress high command has deferred announcing the party’s Chief Minister designate for Kerala, ostensibly until Thursday. 

The test of nerves centred on the Congress’ so far unsettled leadership question in Kerala, despite a historic win in the Assembly elections, appeared set to go down to the wire with a high-level meeting between Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Rahul Gandhi and Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge in the latter’s residence in New Delhi on Wednesday ending without an announcement. 

The anticipation for the momentous proclamation from New Delhi appeared to reach a feverish pitch in Kerala, with sizeable crowds of Congress workers congregating outside the residences of the three top contenders for the post, vis a vis All India Congress Committee general secretary K.C. Venugopal and senior leader Ramesh Chennithala in Alappuzha, and former Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan at Paravur in Ernakulam. 

A KPCC insider, citing media reports that Mr. Venugopal was party to the summit meeting, said the high command seemed to be attempting to take the Congress Legislature Party into confidence in a bid to strike a middle ground between the respective factions owing allegiance to the three leaders. Notably, the high command has summoned the Congress MLAs-elect to Indira Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday. 

Meanwhile, the “raging group war” in the Congress over the top post threatened to spill over into the high command’s backyard. Anonymous posters in English condemning Mr. Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, MP, for allegedly supporting Mr. Venugopal appeared in the latter’s constituency in Wayanad. 

The fresh round of factional skirmishing, including the display of factional loyalty at the residences of the three Chief Minister probables, indicated that the national leadership’s attempt to stamp out dissonance in the party’s State unit had yielded mixed results. 

In Perumbavoor, Ernakulam, Congress workers mobbed KPCC vice president Benny Behanan demanding that the party put an end to the uncertainty. 

At Kottoor in Kozhikode, members of the Congress ward committee threatened to quit en masse if the high command pushed ahead with Mr. Venugopal’s candidature.