The rivals VD Satheesan left behind in Kerala race: K C Venugopal, Ramesh Chennithala

Venugopal, 63, better known as KC in party circles, is a close confidant of Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi and often described within the party as his “shadow”. The Alappuzha MP emerged as the Congress’s chief troubleshooter after assuming the powerful post of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary (organisation) in 2019, succeeding former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot.

Venugopal’s rise to prominence also coincided with the Congress’s Lok Sabha routs in 2014 and 2019, when the party’s tally fell to 44 and 52, respectively, as several powerful leaders from the Hindi heartland were either defeated or fell out of favour with the high command.

Venugopal is now widely seen as the final authority on Kerala affairs within the party. Eclipsing several senior Congress leaders, including his one-time mentor Ramesh Chennithala, who was also seen as a contender for the Kerala CM’s chair, Venugopal consolidated his influence in the state unit following his elevation to the AICC’s top organisational post.

Though Venugopal publicly denied harbouring any ambitions for the Kerala CM’s position, he remained actively involved in all major party matters in the state. His influence became particularly evident during candidate selection for the recent Assembly elections, where he handpicked several loyalists while consolidating his support among others within the ranks. That clout ultimately translated into backing for his candidature in the race for the CM’s post, with a majority of the party’s 63 newly elected MLAs rallying behind him.

Hailing from Payyannur in Kannur district, Venugopal rose to prominence through the Congress’s student wing, the Kerala Students Union (KSU), which he had previously headed. He also served as the state president of the Youth Congress from 1993 to 2000 with the backing of Congress veteran K Karunakaran.

In 1991, Venugopal, then 28, contested the Lok Sabha elections from Kasaragod but lost. He later shifted base to Alappuzha, from where he successfully contested the Assembly elections in 1996. He retained the seat in 2001 and 2006. Between 2004 and 2006, Venugopal served as the tourism minister in the Oommen Chandy Cabinet. His political turning point came in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls when he won the Alappuzha seat.

Hailing from Kerala’s upper-caste Hindu Nair community, he was inducted into the Union Cabinet in 2011 as the Minister of State for Power and Civil Aviation. In the faction-ridden politics of the Congress in Kerala, Venugopal consistently displayed a knack for navigating various crises. Though Karunakaran nurtured him in the early stages of his political career, by the mid-1990s, Venugopal had turned into a reformist opposed to his one-time mentor.

When Karunakaran stepped down as the CM in 1995 and was replaced by A K Antony, Venugopal became a loyalist of Chennithala, who had carved out a third faction to weaken the Karunakaran-Antony dominance within the party. Later, when Chennithala inherited Karunakaran’s political legacy around two decades ago, Venugopal emerged as his close lieutenant.

Another major turning point in Venugopal’s political career came after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, which saw the Congress suffer a massive rout across much of North India. Emerging as one of the few Congress leaders elected to the Lok Sabha — Kerala had bucked the national trend by electing 12 Congress MPs — Venugopal was subsequently appointed the party’s chief whip in the Lower House. The elevation helped him step out of the shadow of Kerala’s senior Congress leaders and assume a larger role in the party’s national affairs.

After being appointed AICC general secretary, Venugopal emerged as a key aide to Gandhi on party matters. The Congress leadership frequently entrusted him with the role of crisis manager in several states, though not all those assignments yielded success. His critics have often argued that Venugopal failed to revive the Congress in the Hindi heartland after 2014. The party’s decisions regarding chief ministers in several states also backfired, raising questions about his strategies.

In Kerala, however, Venugopal consolidated his influence within the party and came to wield the final say in major organisational and political decisions. His position strengthened amid what party insiders described as relatively weak leadership in the state unit. He ensured that most Congress candidates, including sitting legislators, remained loyal to him by providing resources for election management.

Venugopal’s career has also had its share of rows. His name figured in the alleged solar scam that rocked the then Congress-led government in Kerala between 2013 and 2016. He was also among a group of Congress leaders whose names appeared in the alleged call records of a conwoman who later levelled allegations of sexual misconduct against several politicians. The state Crime Branch registered a rape case against him and others following her complaint. Later, the CBI took over the probe but failed to find any evidence against him.

Ramesh Chennithala (former Kerala Home Minister)

Chennithala, who will turn 70 later this month, has donned many roles in his career, both at the organisational and government levels. He had been a minister in Kerala at the age of 28, a Lok Sabha member for four terms, the president of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), and the Youth Congress national president. At present, he is a permanent invitee of the high command and the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in charge of Maharashtra.

Chennithala, who had served as the home minister during the Oommen Chandy government from 2011 to 2016, would have been the natural choice in 2021. He had led the UDF as the Opposition leader from 2016 to 2021, but lost the chance after the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) retained power in the state. Even after the massive rout, he enjoyed the support of MLAs for another innings as the Opposition leader. However, the party wanted to end factionalism and bring in a generational shift in the leadership, leading to the eclipse of the seasoned politician.

In the Chandy days, Chennithala, who then led the “I” group in the Congress that he had inherited from K Karunakaran, had made a futile attempt to topple the CM. Upper caste Hindu Nair community outfit Nair Service Society had then demanded Chennithala, then Congress state president, be given the key post in the UDF regime. Subsequently, Chennithala was made Home Minister in 2014 after divesting another Nair member in the Cabinet, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, of that portfolio. For some time, Chennithala continued as the Home Minister as well as the KPCC president.

Hailing from the village of Chennithala in Alappuzha, he started his political career during his school years in the 1970s as a KSU worker. In 1980, Chennithala became the KSU state president and two years later, the national president of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI). One of the young leaders nurtured by Karunakaran, Chennithala was fielded as Congress candidate from the Haripad Assembly constituency in Alappuzha in 1982. He was elected to the seat and retained it again in 1987. Following the second win, Chennithala was inducted into the Karunakaran Cabinet as the rural affairs minister.

In 1989, Chennithala won the Lok Sabha election from Kottayam and got re-elected in 1991 and 1996 from the same seat and in 1999 from Mavelikkara. After he lost the Lok Sabha elections in 2004, Chennithala returned to Kerala politics, where his one-time mentor Karunakaran had quit the party and floated the rebel outfit, Democratic Indira Congress. But by then, Chennithala had already distanced himself from Karunakaran because the latter wanted to promote his son K Muraleedharan in the I group. Chennithala was then the face of the “reformist group” within the Congress that he had floated against Karunakaran.

Karunakaran’s exit from the Congress in 2005 along with Muraleedharan, who was the KPCC president, paved the way for Chennithala’s second innings in state politics. Chennithala became the state Congress president and managed to cushion the impact of the split in the party through his network of party leaders and workers across the state. It was during his tenure that the party launched the Jaihind TV channel.

In the 2011 Assembly elections, he returned to Haripad and won the seat, which he has held since then. During the Congress government of 2011-2016, Chennithala had a strained relationship with Chandy. Chennithala’s attempt to unseat Chandy was at the root of the bar bribery scandal that shook the government.

After the 2016 elections, Chennithala stepped into the leadership of the legislature party, which Chandy had headed for over a decade. As the UDF leader, he took on the Pinarayi Vijayan government, raising several allegations. While facing the 2021 elections, Chennithala had no rival contenders in the party, with Chandy not having age on his side.  However, the UDF lost the election after the state decided to buck the trend of alternating between the LDF and the UDF every five years.

Even after being consigned to the second row in the Opposition bench, Chennithala ensured that he remained in the limelight. Apart from running a campaign against a drug menace, he took ahead his Gandhi Gram movement, aimed at the upliftment of Dalit and tribal settlements. Every New Year’s Day, Chennithala spends time at one such settlement that is part of the scheme.