It was KC Venugopal who officially announced in June 2024 that Rahul Gandhi had been chosen as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
After the Congress bagged 99 Lok Sabha seats in the general elections — its best result in a decade, and enough to cross the 10% threshold required to claim the post of Leader of the Opposition — it was Venugopal’s duty as general secretary of the All India Congress Committee (AICC).
Now it is up to Rahul to decide whether Venugopal, widely considered among his closest aides, will return home to Thiruvananthapuram as the next chief minister of Kerala.
Career from state to delhi
Kuzumal Chatadi Venugopal, born on 4 February 1963 in Payyannur, Kannur district in Kerala, entered politics through the student wing of the Indian National Congress.
Now 63, he began his political career in the Kerala Assembly, where he won from Alappuzha in 1996, 2001 and 2006. Under Prime Minister Oommen Chandy, he served as Minister of State for Tourism.
After nearly two decades in the state, he went national after winning the Alappuzha Lok Sabha seat in 2009 and 2014. This was the height of the Congress era in recent decades. Venugopal remained a junior minister in the UPA-2 government under Manmohan Singh.
He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan in June 2020 – after not contesting in 2019 – and in 2024 he returned to the Lok Sabha contest, winning Alappuzha by a wide margin again.
Weight within the organization
In April 2017, he was appointed Secretary General of the AICC, and was later given additional charge as GS (Organization). This means responsibility, or key role, in candidate selection, party discipline, membership motivations and coalition management.
In the 2026 Kerala campaign, he played a role at the state level, with news agency PTI quoting sources saying that Venugopal helped bring disaffected CPI(M) leaders of the then ruling LDF into the fold of the Congress-led UDF.
In the 18th Lok Sabha, Congress appointed Gaurav Gogoi as deputy leader and K Suresh as chief whip. Venugopal announced these appointments on social media as per party protocol.
Key role in Lok Sabha
In Parliament, Venugopal sits directly to Rahul Gandhi’s left on the opposition benches. This closeness translated into a consistent pattern of official interventions on Gandhi’s behalf during recent sessions.
In June 2024, when Gandhi’s microphone was turned off while he was trying to raise the issue of NEET paper leak, Venugopal filed an adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha demanding discussion of paper leaks in NEET-UG (medical entrance) exams and UGC-NET (teaching eligibility) exams, and the failure of the National Testing Agency (NTA). In December 2024, when Gandhi was banned from traveling to the violence-hit Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh, Venugopal applied for a postponement.
The most recent parliamentary intervention came in April 2026, after the Constitution of Government (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 was defeated in the Lok Sabha and Prime Minister Modi addressed the nation criticizing the opposition. The bill was about delimitation – increasing Lok Sabha seats and thus redrawing constituency maps – in order to immediately implement the 33% quota for women, but the Opposition wanted quotas without such delimitation being a prerequisite.
When Prime Minister Modi later criticized the Congress and others in an address to the nation, Venugopal filed a breach of privilege notice against him, calling the speech an “unprecedented, immoral and blatant abuse of power.”
Where it stands against competitors
In the Kerala race itself, Venugopal was measured. In a joint press conference on May 9 with other contenders V D Sathisan and Ramesh Chennithala – who had just met the top leadership – he called for calm among party workers.
“Some unfortunate incidents are happening between them. We would like to put everyone behind us. We are all party workers and our top priority is the party and the people,” he said, referring to the flexible councils being formed and rallies being organized by rival factions.
The numbers behind it are great. After AICC observers Mukul Wasnik and Ajay Maken completed one-on-one meetings with all 63 Congress members and submitted their findings to party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Venugopal emerged with majority support within the legislative party, multiple reports said.
During Rahul Gandhi’s consultations with top Kerala leaders on Tuesday, he received the support of seven of the 10 leaders present, HT reported. Rival Satheesan got two. One of them remained neutral. For his part, Chennithala told reporters: “We have conveyed everything we had to say to the high command. The rest is for them to decide.”
Sathisan, a lawyer and six-time MLA, has won continuously from Paravur in Ernakulam district since 2001. He succeeded Ramesh Chennithala as leader of the opposition in the Kerala Assembly after the United Democratic Front’s defeat in the 2021 elections, and spent five years as the most visible face of the United Front’s challenge to the Pinarayi Vijayan government.
Ahead of the 2026 campaign, he publicly staked his political career on the outcome, saying: “If the UDF fails, I will retire from politics the next day and go into exile.” He didn’t have to. His claim to the premiership was based not only on this personal mandate, but also on the support of the International Trade Union Confederation, whose 22 members make it the second largest partner of the FDF.
Ramesh Chennithala, who holds the record of being the youngest minister in the history of Kerala, has served as KPCC president, Leader of the Opposition and Home Minister.
For Venugopal, if he is chosen by Rahul, party president Mallikarjun Kharge and others in the leadership, there will still be a key logistical fact. He is not contesting the 2026 Kerala Assembly elections. If he is made chief minister, he will need to win a bypoll within six months of assuming office. But that’s just logistics.
The deadline for forming the government is May 23.
