Soon after VD Sathisan was sworn in as the 13th Chief Minister of Kerala, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi posted a message on X consisting of about six sentences, mentioning two people by name.
“Huge congratulations to VD Satheesan ji and the entire government, who will now represent the voice of all Keralans,” Gandhi wrote. “Thank you to KC Venugopal ji, who led this campaign from the front lines,” he added. Satheesan received praise. Venugopal got the gratitude. The photo collage in the post had Rahul hugging both of them and others.
But the explicit references were not accidental.
The Congress-led United Democratic Front won 102 of Kerala’s 140 Assembly seats in the April 9 elections, the results of which were out on May 4. The Congress Party alone won 63 seats. The number of seats for the Left Democratic Front, which held power for ten years, decreased to 35 seats. The BJP won three seats.
What followed was 10 days during which Congress did not appoint any prime minister.
How the CM race ended
KC Venugopal, the party’s national general secretary (organisation) and Lok Sabha MP from Alappuzha in Kerala, was the favorite as he started the race with three contenders, the other two being Sathisan and Ramesh Chennithala.
At one point, seven of the ten senior Kerala Congress leaders consulted by the party high command, namely the Gandhi family and President Mallikarjun Kharge, supported Venugopal. Kharge and Rahul Gandhi made the final call.
On May 15, the party announced the selection of Sathisean, the Leader of the Opposition in the outgoing Assembly. This, after a half-and-half power-sharing arrangement for the chief minister’s post between Venugopal and Satheesan was mooted and rejected, HT reported. The party was wary of such an arrangement becoming a major distraction as is the case in Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.
No deputy chief minister has been announced for the new Kerala government yet. Ramesh Chennithala is part of the Sathisan government.
The weeks between the result and the swearing-in produced palpable public friction as well. Supporters of the rival leaders took to the streets in various regions. Labels pulled down. The Congress leadership had to manage internal opposition while simultaneously negotiating with coalition partners for ministerial seats.
“The party is everything”
Sathisan met Venugopal on May 15, after the Prime Minister’s announcement – their first meeting since the decision was taken.
The meeting lasted 20 minutes. Venugopal then said: “Party is everything. Questions regarding the post of chief minister are no longer relevant.”
The 21-member Cabinet, sworn in on Monday, includes 12 ministers from the Congress including the Prime Minister, five from the Indian Muslim League, and one each from the Kerala Congress (Joseph), CMP and RSP. Reports said that Venugopal had a major role in selecting the ministers.
When asked about this, Sathisan said, “What group is in the list? No Congress leader influenced anyone. The first list was prepared in just 10 minutes. Subsequent discussions were held keeping in mind various factors.”
Venugopal was present at the swearing-in ceremony at the Central Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday morning. So were Karge, Priyanka Gandhi, and the presidents of the Congress-ruled states of Karnataka, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh.
Earlier in the day, Venugopal was at Thiruvananthapuram airport to receive visiting dignitaries from Delhi, in a clear act of institutional loyalty from a man who, days earlier, was reportedly backed by a majority of MLAs for the chief minister’s post. However, Sathisan was chosen due to his popular popularity.
Journalists asked Venugopal, who has been mainly in central politics for the past two decades after multiple stints in the Kerala Assembly, how things are now.
“Everything is fine,” he said.
When it was announced on May 14, he said he was hurting not to be selected: “The party is the end for me. I will be hurt if my party hurts.”
On stage after taking the oath, Sathisan hugged Rahul Gandhi, and then Ramesh Chennithala, the other man who did not get the position. And shake hands with others too.
Sathisean’s first order as Prime Minister was to announce freedom of bus travel for women in state buses, which was one of the five guarantees announced by Rahul Gandhi at the launch of the United Democratic Front’s election campaign in March.
