It has not not come at a right time for the Congress. The high command is undecided - should it celebrate the "success" of Nov 1 Ram Lila ground rally or should it think of new strategies as the SIR issue has lost its steam.
The rivalry between six-term MLA V D Satheesan, now chief minister, and Rahul Gandhi's trusted aide K C Venugopal is far from over. In April-May this year; Satheesan had led the Congress-led UDF’s poll campaign. He had declared that if the UDF failed to win less than 100 of Kerala’s 140 seats, he would “quit politics and go into exile”.
He was right and the alliance eventually crossed that mark. The Congress emerged the single largest party with 63 seats and the UDF won 102 seats. But when it came to selection of chief ministership; Venugopal wanted to make full use of his right contacts.
VD Satheesan with KC Venugopal, Shashi Tharoor and Rahul and others during the Bharat Jodo Yatra
Satheesan won the first round. But leaking their wounds; the Venugopal camp had given one-year deadline promising their 'faction of legislators' that the incumbent chief minister would be ousted by May-June 2027.
Now a new book has been released in Dubai. It has certain serious allegations against Venugopal. The author is a woman Congress activist from Keralam, Ms Vani Prayag. According to reports; about the book she said -
"Even if no one else in the world reads this book, he will track it down and read it.”
I say this is Malayali 'style' of putting things across. And it is quite a powerful message and a serious allegation.
Vani has shared an AI-generated image showing K.C. Venugopal holding her book titled “Udalum Njanum Thammil” (Between My Body and Me).
The title itself is controversial and has 'double meaning' messaging.
The Facebook post states that she is a scapegoat in Kerala politics.
Are all these related to Venugopal-Satheesan rivalry? Politics is an art of the possible.
Vani also says: " ..... the face of that wolf in sheep's clothing... I and my book are at the Haritham stall in the Sharjah Book Fair.....
Many things that the world needs to know... I am beginning to speak. Let the world read... my dreams that once ended up confined to some newspaper headlines....".
Following the Congress-led UDF victory in the May 2026 Kerala Assembly elections, Venugopal and V. D. Satheesan had emerged as the two primary contenders for the Chief Minister post.
They represented distinct political roles and organizational backgrounds within the Kerala Congress. Satheesan had the backing of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) because of his staunch opposition to Hindu caste groups such as SNDP.
Satheesan also enjoyed support from the Kerala Congress (Joseph) faction as well as grassroots party workers. In political sense; unlike "Delhi's Venugopal"; the chief minister was considered as an accessible, clean-image state leader with a direct track record.
Venugopal was reportedly backed by a significant majority of newly elected Congress MLAs (around 40) of the 63 Congress legislators are said to have enjoyed the blessings of 'resource coordination'.
Now the issue is how far would this rivalry go ?
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“I do not see this position as a personal achievement... it was Venugopal who coordinated all the activities (and) his support was immense," Satheesan said for records after he was elected legislature party leader.
Venugopal returned the gesture politely. "I was saying the decision of the High Command will prevail...," he said.
But all that glitters is not gold. Politicians know how to work against each other despite being best of friends and party colleagues.
The same problem has come back. But Keralam has own peculiarities.
The LDF's defeat in Kerala marks for the first time in 50 years that no state in India has any Communist party in power on its own. This is especially true in case of the CPI(M), which was founded in 1964 & formed the world's first democratically elected Communist government in Kerala under E. M. S. Namboodiripad in 1967.
In the 140-member assembly, IUML has 22 MLAs. The BJP is a marginal force with just 3 MLAs and so even if the Congress house is burning; it is no position to do anything extra ordinary.
However, the fact that the Lotus party is in power in Delhi gives it some space for necessary game plans. The central agencies can be made use of 'directly or indirectly' by either Venugopal camp or by the state chief minister himself.
In the past, one CPI-M leader A. P. Abdullakutty suddenly joined BJP. Many say, he was always a good friend of Venugopal.
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| Abdullakutty |
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