Assam Ministry Swearing-in on May 12, Kerala Leadership Choice Left to Congress High Command

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, May 8: While the BJP government led by the incumbent chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma is due to be installed in the office in Assam on May 12, the formation of the new government in Kerala may take some time as the Congress high command authorised to name the new chief minister is busy in confabulations to decide on the leadership choice.

The Congress-led UDF has returned to office with a huge majority in the 140-member Kerala Assembly defeating the decade-old LDF government led by the CPI(M).

The decision on Congress’ Chief Minister in Kerala seemed to assume the contours of a political cliff-hanger. The question of who among the purported three Chief Minister probables – Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary K.C. Venugopal, and senior leader Ramesh Chennithala – would make the cut appeared set to go down to the wire, with party High Command reportedly scheduled to make the pivotal announcement on Sunday.

Mr Satheesan, Mr Chennithala and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Sunny Joseph were bound for Delhi, reportedly for a penultimate round of discussions with the party’s High Command on Saturday.

As the confusion over the new leader continued, party sources claimed that out of the 63 Congress MLAs, 10 have left the decision to the party high command. Among the 53 MLAs who expressed their preference, 43 named KC Venugopal and within this group of 53, 4 to 5 MLAs cited both KC Venugopal and VD Satheesan as their choices, while 2 to 3 MLAs named KC Venugopal and Ramesh Chennithala.

Since Priyanka Gandhi is currently a Member of Parliament from Kerala—and Rahul Gandhi has served in that capacity in the past—both are expected to play a pivotal role in determining the next Chief Minister.

In the meantime, the two Congress observers, appointed to seek the opinion of newly elected MLAs in Kerala, submitted their report to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday and urged the party high command to take a final decision on the chief ministerial candidate.

Ajay Maken and Mukul Wasnik spoke to all the MLAs of the Congress as well as party MPs and submitted their observations to the party leadership. The duo had gone to Kerala on Wednesday and met all the legislators and MPs on Thursday before returning to the national capital.

Sources said a majority of the party MLAs are in support of making AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal the chief minister while the public is favouring senior party leader V D Satheesan, who was the leader of opposition in the outgoing Kerala assembly.

Maken and Wasnik discussed with Kharge the observations made by the new party legislators when they met each one of them individually. They have also spoken to the party MPs and some ex-MPs, the sources said.

The accidental disclosure of a part of a document purportedly showing a list of “yes” votes from elected Congress MLAs supposedly backing Mr Venugopal, published in a newspaper on Friday, caused political embarrassment, prompting AICC observers Mukul Wasnik and Ajay Maken to deny the “record’s legitimacy.”

Notably, Mr Joseph, who, as per the “questionable” document surreptitiously captured by a lensman, appeared to back Mr Venugopal, stated somewhat enigmatically to reporters that “numbers meant everything in parliamentary politics.” His statement assumed some significance against the backdrop of reports that a majority of Congress’ MLA designates had backed Mr Venugopal for the “top post.” Notably, Sandeep Varier, another MLA designate whose name was on the “yes sayer’s list,” did not deny that he had backed Mr Venugopal. The “list” seemed to hold a mirror up to the allegedly raging power struggles and turmoil in Congress over the Chief Minister’s post.

For one, the party’s MLA-designate from Uduma in Kasaragod, N. Neelakantan, emailed AICC’s observers that they had “erroneously” recorded his “definite choice” for the Chief Minister’s post as “neutral” in the “list.” Mr Neelakantan’s complaint triggered social media insinuations by Congress’ “faction fighters” that attempts were afoot to stack the odds in Mr Venugopal’s favour by disregarding “naysayers.”

The other UDF allies have repeatedly expressed apprehensions that the “vexatious” selection process would carve up the Congress and, by extension, the alliance, rendering the tight-knit leadership team that delivered the historical electoral win divided profoundly.

Mr Satheesan, Mr Venugopal and Mr Chennithala are at different points in their long political career. A KPCC insider said the High Command had reportedly summoned the three leaders to Delhi, possibly to “work out a deal to avert an acrimonious leadership race that might have implications for the next UDF government.” Meanwhile, the poster war between the supporters of the three leaders seemed to be spiralling out of control, with scores of new, competing hoardings appearing across Kerala.