Opinion | 4 Leaders In Congress Are Vying For One Job - And None Is Ready To Step Aside

"All for one, and one for all" (Tous pour un, un pour tous), is the motto of the titular heroes of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers. Such comradeship is seldom associated with chief-ministerial aspirants in a political party, and least of all when it comes to Congress. The 'Three Musketeers' of the Congress state unit in Kerala -  VD Satheesan, Ramesh Chennithala and KC Venugopal - once part of the Karunakaran faction before drifting apart, have closed ranks to make sure that they are on the same page going into the election. The unprecedented projection of unity, nevertheless, cannot mask the individual efforts undertaken by these leaders to assume the position of Kerala Chief Minister.

Satheesan In Prime Position

VD Satheesan has a natural edge as the incumbent leader of the opposition (LoP). Satheesan's performance against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan - who's battling a two-term anti-incumbency - has been generally regarded as superior to his predecessor Ramesh Chennithala's. The very appointment in 2021 of Satheesan as LoP was controversial, as it was orchestrated by the central leadership overruling the show of hands of the party legislators. It was necessitated on account of Vijayan bucking the four-decade trend of alternating governments in the state. As a lone ranger, Satheesan never had a massive following within the party, and that situation remains more or less the same today.

Moreover, Satheesan is also hobbled by the opposition to his leadership from Hindu community outfits such as the Nair Service Society (NSS) and the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam. Back in 2011, when Oommen Chandy formed the government with a wafer-thin majority, the NSS had overruled Satheesan's name in favour of VS Sivakumar as its Nair nominee in the Cabinet, and it remains a sore point in his relationship with the NSS. Satheesan attempted to mend his ties with the NSS in recent times, but that hasn't worked out. The SNDP Yogam of the Ezhava community has been antagonistic towards the Congress in general, and its leader, Vellappally Natesan, has been engaged in a war of words with Satheesan.

The Nair and Ezhava communities make up more than a third of Kerala's population, and Satheesan's weak ties with these community outfits make it risky for the Congress to project him as a challenger to Vijayan. Satheesan himself is acutely aware of it, and he has been on a mission to get minority communities and the general public to back him instead. As chairman of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), Satheesan has taken ownership of the risky association with the Jamaat-e-Islami, thereby not letting ally Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) get besmirched by the unholy alliance. Satheesan's decision to criticise Vellappally Natesan at a recent event of the Samastha Kerala Jemiyyathul Ulama was another action aimed at endearing himself to the supporters of the outfit.

Satheesan has also been trying to enlist the support of various Christian denominations by making his presence felt at church events, and his gift of the gab and the knowledge of Bible verses have held him in good stead. But Satheesan still hasn't acquired a huge following within the wider Christian community - unlike Shashi Tharoor, for instance. Satheesan likens his outreach to different groups, including Pentecostal churches, to Pinarayi Vijayan's brand of social engineering. His detractors within Congress claim that Satheesan has also taken a leaf out of Vijayan's public relations tactics, including undergoing a hair transplant to cast himself in a new avatar.

The Forever Man, Chennithala

Ramesh Chennithala's stint as LoP (2016-21) is often held up to Satheesan's blemish-free score in by-polls (and victory in the local body polls) to highlight his comparatively inferior record. Supporters of the veteran, however, point out how he did not get the full backing of the party on his various exposes, leaving Chennithala vulnerable to targeted attacks from the Left ranks. He also had to contend with being in the shadows of Oommen Chandy, even while he was LoP, never being fully in command. However, the fact that Pinarayi Vijayan repeatedly scored goals at his expense to win a second term is held against him.

But Chennithala's seniority is something that cannot be easily overlooked. A contemporary of Mamata Banerjee as National Students Union (NSUI) president and the blue-eyed boy of K Karunakaran, Chennithala first served as Cabinet minister 40 years ago in 1986. As he turns 70 this year, it's virtually now-or-never for the veteran, who has held practically all positions in the party except that of Chief Minister. It took a while for him to come to terms with losing the position of LoP, but lately he has been a team player, making all the right noises. The Chennithala camp has also been dropping hints that there is some understanding between him and Satheesan on power-sharing, like Karnataka, but it is in the realm of speculation at the moment.

Even so, beyond Satheesan's politically correct statements - often describing Chennithala as his leader - it is evident that he will not easily let the crown slip off. Chennithala is at peace with the situation as he believes that because he has a bigger 'claim' than anybody else due to his seniority, he can leave the question of chief ministership for later, if that helps Satheesan deliver the state to the party. Seniority aside, Chennithala's USP is his long association with all United Democratic Front (UDF) constituents and being the most acceptable among the three contenders to the NSS and the SNDP Yogam.

Chennithala still leads a weakened faction in the party, while the other factions have been more scattered; it is unlikely that he will give up chief minister-ship without putting up a fight. And it is in the event of such a clash between Satheesan and Chennithala that KC Venugopal comes in.

Rahul Gandhi's Pointman, Venu

Both Vengopal and Satheesan are contemporaries, but the former grew at the latter's expense throughout the '90s. Venugopal first earned a name as minister under Oommen Chandy (2004-06) and went on to serve as a junior central minister in his first term in the Lok Sabha (2009-14). But it was Venugopal's ability to win the trust of Rahul Gandhi that catapulted him overnight to being the 'high command' of sorts for the party in Kerala. As general secretary in charge of organisation, Venugopal is a busy man but keeps his date with his constituency of Alappuzha every Sunday. Lately, however, he has been spending extra time in the state, dropping hints that he may be priming for the top job himself. Some of Venugopal's recent political stunts, such as riding with a food delivery agent and sharing a meal with a family, invited ridicule on social media. They only ended up underlining his desperation. 

In the past five years, when factional affiliations in the state have been fluid, Venugopal managed to get a number of erstwhile Chennithala loyalists into his camp. That makes him a formidable force within the state unit, even if he can technically stake a claim only when Satheesan and Chennithala cannot come to an agreement on power-sharing.
Chennithala reckons that Venugopal will back his claim over Satheesan's - the latter two being contemporaries - but that remains to be seen. There is also a possibility that Rahul Gandhi might hesitate to let Venugopal move back to state politics as that would mean loosening his grip on organisational matters. Such a scenario, coupled with Satheesan and Chennithala failing to come to an agreement, might open the possibility for a fourth aspirant as a consensus candidate. And that is the sliver of hope that Shashi Tharoor holds on to.

Enter Tharoor

Dumas' protagonist in The Three Musketeers isn't the titular Athos, Porthos or Aramis, but the fourth musketeer, D'Artagnan. Halfway into Pinarayi Vijayan's term, when he still enjoyed relative popularity, it was assumed that only Shashi Tharoor could salvage the Congress in the state. At that point, the IUML, the NSS and the Church had been championing Tharoor, but a combination of factors, including the Hamas attack on Israel and its impact on Kerala politics, meant that Tharoor quickly fell off the pecking order.

Tharoor tried to straddle both Kerala and national politics. In fact, things came to a head following 'Operation Sindoor' and his global outreach in its wake. Speculations emerged about his impending break-up with the Congress - even if the Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram had practically nowhere to go, be it the luddite Left or the sectarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, a belated patch-up, followed by a one-to-one between Rahul and Tharoor, ensured that the latter is also on the same page as the UDF campaign enters the last stage.

At the Congress brainstorming camp in Wayanad, the four contenders were all smiles as the cameras clicked away furiously. The overt projection of unity has come as a respite for the Congress cadres in the state, but the real fight will ensue post-poll, where all four aspirants cling to the hope of emerging as the next Chief Minister of Kerala.

(Anand Kochukudy is a senior journalist and columnist)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author