VD Satheesan as Kerala CM: Congress got it right, but handled it wrong

Dashing the hopes of All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary (organisation) and key Rahul Gandhi aide KC Venugopal, the Congress high command finally signed off on making VD Satheesan Kerala’s next chief minister. Yet, the party’s decision taken on Thursday (May 14), after 10 days of hectic deliberations and a public spectacle of divisions, exposed the vulnerabilities of the Congress’s top leadership.

Also read: Why and how VD Satheesan became the inevitable choice as Kerala CM

Congress leaders involved in the discussions admit there was a “serious effort” to steer consensus towards Venugopal. What tipped the scales in Satheesan’s favour, however, was a combination of factors that Rahul eventually realised he could ill-afford to ignore.

Since the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) romped to power with 102 seats in the 140-member Kerala Assembly on May 4, ending the Left Democratic Front’s decade-long stint in power, three Congress leaders had emerged as frontrunners for the CM’s post.

After polls, Congress's own three-way contest

Venugopal, who had not contested the Assembly polls following the party’s diktat to sitting MPs to stay out of the race, was widely perceived to be Rahul’s choice. Satheesan, the Leader of Opposition in the previous Assembly, was seen as the man who rebuilt both the party organisation and its electoral narrative over the past five years and came to enjoy widespread support among cadres as well as sections of Kerala’s civil society and public intellectuals.

The third aspirant was veteran leader Ramesh Chennithala, whose claim rested largely on seniority and loyalty to the party, along with calculations that he could emerge as a compromise choice if the contest between Satheesan and Venugopal became too bitter.

Party sources said the very fact that Venugopal’s name figured among contenders despite him not contesting the polls reflected how deeply invested the high command, specifically Rahul, was in seeing him become chief minister.

Also read: KC Venugopal: Rahul's gatekeeper, who couldn't unlock Kerala CM office

As the party’s organisational general secretary for seven years, Venugopal consolidated his position as one of the few leaders who not only has Rahul’s ear but also controls access to the party’s central power structure. Party insiders concede it was this stature that allowed Venugopal a disproportionately high say in candidate selection in Kerala and in mobilising campaign resources.

This, along with assumptions about his indispensability to Rahul and the leadership’s wish to see him become the CM, appears to have driven over 40 of the Congress’s 63 newly elected MLAs to back Venugopal when AICC observers Mukul Wasnik and Ajay Maken met them on May 7 to assess preferences among Venugopal, Satheesan and Chennithala.

With a majority in the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) favouring him, the leadership initially believed Venugopal’s path to Cliff House, the official residence of the Kerala CM, would be smooth.

“The only hurdle that remained in Venugopal’s path,” said a senior Congress leader consulted by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, “was to get Satheesan and Chennithala to accept the high command’s decision.”

But once discussions shifted from Thiruvananthapuram to New Delhi, Venugopal’s ride got choppy, and the high command’s plans hit turbulence that only intensified with each passing day.

Irritated Rahul abruptly ends talks

Even before Kharge and Rahul met the three aspirants in Delhi on May 9 to evolve a consensus, Kerala witnessed a groundswell of support among Congress cadres for Satheesan, even as most newly elected MLAs continued backing Venugopal.

An irritated Rahul is learnt to have abruptly ended the discussion with the trio, asking them first to put an end to the public sparring between their respective supporters, which, in his view, had begun eclipsing the UDF’s impressive victory.

Rahul’s diktat, however, appeared to have little effect. With each day that the Congress high command delayed a decision, the groundswell for Satheesan only grew louder. In time, it turned into anger, with even the Congress’s key ally, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which had publicly endorsed Satheesan, expressing displeasure at the prolonged indecision.

By May 13, posters had appeared in Wayanad, now represented in the Lok Sabha by Priyanka Gandhi and previously Rahul Gandhi’s electoral refuge after his defeat in Amethi, practically threatening the Gandhi siblings with political reprisal if Venugopal was chosen over Satheesan.

Also read: Kerala CM: Why is Congress struggling to make a decision?

Rahul was livid at Satheesan’s “strong-arm tactics” and “indiscipline”; perhaps “convinced by the Venugopal camp that the public sentiment was not organic but manufactured”, said a senior leader Rahul had consulted on May 13.

For the Lok Sabha LoP, sources said, it did not help that Kharge, Priyanka Gandhi, former chief minister AK Antony and at least two former Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee chiefs advocated for a decision that “honours public sentiment” instead of prioritising the CLP majority — a veiled endorsement for Satheesan.

'Rahul got isolated within high command'

“Perhaps for the first time on a matter that is so important, Rahul seemed to be isolated within the high command,” said a senior Congress functionary. “Satheesan may have overstepped with the aggressive lobbying, but public and cadre sentiment as well as the IUML’s support for him simply could not be ignored, and both Priyanka and Kharge understood that.”

Party insiders say the sharply divided deliberations over the past 10 days left Rahul — and by extension the Congress high command — “completely exposed” and “vulnerable to criticism for trying to supersede public support with personal loyalty”.

“Everyone knows KC as Rahul’s man. That is KC’s only political identity,” said a senior member of the Congress Working Committee. “Even if one were to assume that the MLAs were backing KC on some merit or out of personal loyalty, the public impression is that Rahul wanted him as CM. Sonia Gandhi would never have allowed herself to be put in such a situation and be exposed in this way.”

Did Congress do the right thing but at a cost?

Another party leader who had previously served as an AICC observer in another state said the Congress “may have done the right thing by ultimately choosing Satheesan” but explained that “the long delay, the 24X7 Venugopal versus Satheesan debates in the media and social media and the general feeling that Venugopal was in the race because of Rahul have all dented the high command”.

“What should have been seen as the logical and right decision taken by the high command now appears to be a decision the leadership was forced to take under pressure from Satheesan and his supporters; it shows the leadership in a poor light, as if they either don’t care about public sentiment or are unable to gauge it,” the leader said.

The leader also added, “If Rahul had nothing to do with Venugopal’s bid to become CM, he should have firmly told the central observers and party leaders in Kerala that the CM will be chosen from the sitting MLAs and explained this to Venugopal too. Do you think Venugopal would have ignored Rahul’s decision? Just his name being in the contest vitiated the whole thing and made it look like Rahul is trying to reward a loyalist.”

Also read: TN, Kerala beyond BJP’s reach now, but for how long?

While the decks are now cleared for Satheesan to take oath as CM, sections within the party believe the manner in which the high command “allowed itself to be seen as taking sides” will haunt the leadership every time Satheesan and Venugopal disagree in the future.

A party leader said Satheesan’s first challenge would be finalising his council of ministers.

“A bulk of the MLAs backed Venugopal, and Venugopal will naturally try to stack the ministry with these MLAs while Satheesan tries to get his loyalists in. So that could be the first challenge,” the leader said.

“Satheesan has to anyway win over Chennithala, who would naturally be unhappy at being passed over again… a bigger challenge may come once the government begins functioning because Venugopal would try to interfere in one way or another, and each time that happens, fingers will be raised at the Congress high command. We have handled this very badly,” the leader said.