“Kerala wants KC,” read a banner in Thiruvananthapuram put up by a section of the Congress in Kerala seeking the selection of All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary (Organisation) K.C. Venugopal as the Chief Minister of the State.
“Natural Choice,” read the poster beside a picture of V.D. Satheesan, the former Leader of the Opposition in the Kerala Assembly and the man many believed had held Team UDF together. For this team, he was the preferred choice for Chief Minister. Across many parts of Kerala, protests and counter-protests have erupted over the selection of a Congress MLA for the State’s top post.
Exactly a week after the results of the Kerala Legislative Assembly election 2026 were announced and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) emerged as the winner by a distance, the AICC has been unable to pick a Chief Minister.
On May 5, Venugopal claimed that a decision on the Leader of the Congress Legislature Party was “imminent”. On May 8, the Congress Legislature Party adopted a resolution authorising the AICC to choose the next leader of the legislature party. On May 9, sources in the Congress party told several media outlets that a decision would be taken on May 10. AICC Kerala in-charge, Deepa Dasmunsi, added a caveat too: “A decision will be taken by the high command in due course.” On May 10, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi reached Chennai to participate in the swearing-in ceremony of actor Vijay, who assumed office as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, without weighing in on the issue.
The UDF has won 102 seats in the 140-member Assembly, its best-ever tally. Of this, the Congress won 63 and the Indian Union Muslim League 22 seats. The Congress has until May 23 to pick an MLA for the top job.
The three contenders to the post are Satheesan, Venugopal, and the Congress party’s face in the State for decades, Ramesh Chennithala. On paper, Venugopal is stronger with the support of the majority of the MLAs, the KPCC president Sunny Joseph and former KPCC president K.Sudhakaran.
Claims and counterclaims
Satheesan, Venugopal, and Chennithala have distinct claims to the post. Venugopal’s claim, while being the weakest, paradoxically creates the impression that he is the preferred choice of Delhi. The main reason his case is considered the weakest is that the AICC did not want any MP to contest the election. This is how it dissuaded multiple MPs—M.K. Raghavan, Adoor Prakash, and Kodikunnil Suresh—who wanted to contest the MLA election. Hence, the fact that Venugopal is in the running itself is difficult for many in Kerala to comprehend.
But it is also a fact that many MLAs, who are aware of Venugopal’s closeness to Rahul Gandhi and understand his clout, want to be in his good books. They have reportedly told the AICC observers that Venugopal is their preferred choice for Chief Minister.
Insiders say that Satheesan has the moral right to be Chief Minister. “What he did ahead of the election is that he did not choose candidates who were around him or had professed his or her loyalty to him; he chose winning candidates based on ground reports. In earlier times, such as when former Congress Chief Ministers Karunakaran and A.K. Antony held sway or even later when Oomen Chandy and Ramesh Chennithala were at the helm, it was often a case of dividing the seats between ‘A’ group and ‘I’ group,” one Congress leader said. [I is the original group that owed allegiance to K. Karunakaran and the A group was the one that revolved around A.K. Antony.]
This made winnabilty of a candidate immaterial; what was important was to ensure that both camps were equally represented in the ticket distribution. This is not to say that both “I” and “A” groups put up unwinnable candidates; just that there was no attempt to figure out if there was a better person than the representatives of the two groups. There were even clashes between the leaders pressing for seats just so that both groups got equal or near-equal seats.
Satheesan refused to do that. He selected a candidate based on inputs from several sources and did not attempt to undermine the person if she had spoken about Satheesan disparagingly in the past or if she had some difference of opinion with him. “The question is who led the battle in 2026,” said political observer George Podippara. “Clearly, the answer is Satheesan,” he added.
Posters supporting K. C. Venugopal and V. D. Satheesan kept next to each other at Vellayambalam circle amid the Congress race for Kerala Chief Minister, in Thiruvananthapuram, on May 8, 2026. | Photo Credit: Nirmal Harindran
The party’s middle and lower rung began trusting Satheesan because he delivered on not one but four by-elections. He made public statements on how much the UDF would win and the victory margin nearly matched his predictions. This was a refreshing change for the Congress, which is so used to hearing high-sounding predictions of huge victory margins ahead of a poll, only to fall short later. Nilambur, Puthupally, Thrikkakara, and even Palakkad are good examples of this.
The Thrikkakara by-election was the first of the lot, in 2022, following the death of sitting Congress MLA P.T. Thomas. His wife and Congress leader Uma Thomas was fielded and it turned out to be an unexpectedly resounding victory for the party—she won by nearly twice the margin secured by her husband. Uma again retained the seat in 2026.
The 2023 Puthupally by-election was prompted by the death of former Chief Minister Oomen Chandy. In a State where dynastic politics is frowned upon, Satheesan backed party president Sudhakaran’s idea of fielding the late leader’s son, Chandy Oomen. Chandy won by a whopping 40,000 votes. This kind of margin is unusual in Kerala.
The Nilambur by-election of 2025 sealed Satheesan’s status as a leader who can deliver when Congress leader Aryadan Shoukath won the seat. The LDF had fielded its popular public intellectual M. Swaraj. Two-term MLA P.V. Anwar, whose resignation necessitated the by-election, was also in the fray. He initially wanted to teach the LDF a lesson (he had won with the support of the LDF earlier). Later, he trained his guns on the Congress.
BJP and more
The BJP too entered the contest after considerable thought. Anwar had held Satheesan responsible for the UDF not fielding him as the candidate in the constituency. In some ways, this was an Anwar versus Satheesan battle, that too in Anwar’s home turf. A few local Congress leaders, at that time, thought that this election would cut Satheesan to size. Instead, Anwar lost, and the Congress won an incredible victory in this battle of wits.
But the real tipping point came after the local body elections in December 2025. No one anticipated the results. The media did predict that the UDF would do well but not this well. Ahead of the elections, Satheesan had forecast that the UDF would win a minimum of seven district panchayats and at least four corporations. He even specified where the UDF would win. For example, he stuck his neck out to assert that the UDF would win the Kollam Corporation—a tall assertion given the fact that it had always been with the LDF. In all, the UDF won four of the six municipal corporations, seven of the 14 district panchayats, 54 of the 87 municipalities, 79 of the 152 block panchayats, and 505 of the 941 panchayats.
One curious fallout of the public debate over the Chief Ministership in Kerala is that multiple MLAs are reportedly unable to attend functions or travel openly because people everywhere ask them about the delay in government formation. “The MLAs in the Malabar region [north Kerala] are disproportionately affected by this,” reported MediaOne news.
The LDF, reeling from its election losses, is heaving a sigh of relief as all the attention remains fixed on the UDF and the foot-dragging by the Congress high command.
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