Voting has ended, the fate of the candidates has been decided, and predictions have been made in opinion polls about who will win and who will lose. Now, all eyes are on May 4 when the votes will be counted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the results announced in four states – Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Assam – where elections were held last month. Track updates on 2026 Assembly elections
However, the Congress in Kerala faces the big question. Who will be the Prime Minister if the United Democratic Front wins the elections, as expected in the polls?
Venugopal for Kerala CM post?
Senior leader of the Congress Party, Tariq Anwar, spoke in this regard on Friday. Anwar said that if party general secretary KC Venugopal is interested, he can become the next chief minister of Kerala although it all depends on what the results reveal in Kerala.
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The Pakistan News Agency quoted Anwar as saying he was confident in the victory of the United Democratic Front in Kerala, saying, “There is no ambiguity in this matter.”
Anwar is the former Kerala CM and MP from Katihar constituency in Bihar.
Senior leadership to make decisions
Although Anwar mentioned Venugopal’s name as a possible prime ministerial candidate, he said the Congress high command would decide who would be the “right person to run the show”.
He said the party high command would appoint an observer calling a meeting of the legislative party and if the prime ministerial candidate was clear in the discussions, the same would be reported to the All India Congress Committee (AICC).
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“The senior leadership will take a final view,” he was quoted as saying.
Asked if Venugopal could become prime minister despite not contesting the Assembly elections, Anwar said that if the Congress general secretary (organisation) is interested, he will have to undergo the required process.
“If the legislative party delegates the final decision to the high command, it will do so,” he said.
Exit poll expectations
Recent opinion polls predict that the United Democratic Front, led by the Congress Party, will win the Assembly elections, while the Left Democratic Front, led by the CPI(M), comes in second place.
Kerala has a total of 140 seats, making 71 seats the majority mark a party or alliance needs to achieve to be able to form the government.
Most opinion polls expected the number of seats for the United Democratic Front to be between 70-90 and the expected number of seats for the Liberal Democratic Party to be between 49-65.
However, Kerala Finance Minister KN Balagopal rejected these predictions and said that exit polls in the past have been proven wrong. He claimed that the exit polls show that the ruling LDF and its rival UDF are neck-and-neck and expressed confidence in the Left Front’s return to power.
The Assembly elections were held in Kerala on April 9, and the results will be announced on May 4.
