The Congress party in Kerala stands at a historic moment. After years in opposition, the UDF has returned to power with authority, momentum, and public expectation. But instead of a smooth transition into governance, the party appears trapped in a dangerous internal power struggle involving V.D. Satheesan, Ramesh Chennithala, and K.C. Venugopal.
The irony is striking: after defeating the Left decisively, Congress now risks weakening itself from within.
And in the middle of this confusion lies a question the party leadership in Delhi should seriously consider:
Why not Priyanka Gandhi?
At first glance, the suggestion may sound unconventional. But politically, strategically, and electorally, it may actually be the safest option available to the Congress.
The Venugopal Problem: A Seat Too Costly to Vacate
The current debate around K.C. Venugopal exposes the problem clearly.
Venugopal already vacated a Rajya Sabha seat from Rajasthan in 2024 to contest the Lok Sabha election from Alappuzha. That decision eventually helped the BJP gain an additional Rajya Sabha MP after the party captured power in Rajasthan. Congress lost a parliamentary seat; BJP gained one.
Now, if Venugopal becomes Chief Minister, he will once again have to vacate an elected seat — this time Alappuzha.
And Alappuzha is not a seat Congress can afford to risk lightly.
Why Alappuzha Is a Genuine Danger Zone
In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, K.C. Venugopal won Alappuzha with 38.2% vote share, defeating CPI(M)’s A.M. Ariff by a margin of about 63,000 votes. More importantly, BJP candidate Sobha Surendran secured nearly 28.3% of votes — a dramatic jump from the BJP’s 17.2% in 2019. In one election cycle, the BJP nearly doubled its foothold in coastal Kerala’s most contested seat.
That changes the equation completely.
A by-election in Alappuzha will not merely be a routine electoral exercise. History shows that the BJP central government has a deliberate strategy for Kerala: it identifies high-value constituencies and deploys national resources, senior ministers, and high-profile Kerala-origin candidates to create a breakthrough moment. We saw this playbook executed in Thrissur in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, where the BJP fielded film star Suresh Gopi with massive central backing and won — breaking into Kerala’s Lok Sabha map for the first time in decades.
Alappuzha would be their next target.
With a Venugopal vacancy, the BJP will almost certainly field a prominent Kerala-origin Union minister or a heavyweight figure, back the campaign with the full machinery of the central government, and mount a communal-polarisation narrative in a constituency already showing strong BJP momentum. At 28.3% vote share and rising, BJP would not need a large swing to win. In a triangular contest with a split anti-BJP vote, the arithmetic works in their favour.
Unlike a general election where a national wave can protect a seat, a by-election is a focused battle — exactly the kind of concentrated contest where the BJP’s resource advantage is most dangerous.
Even if BJP does not win immediately, a further increase in vote share would itself be declared a political victory — demoralising Congress in the state and emboldening BJP’s Kerala expansion narrative.
Why Wayanad Is Different
By contrast, Wayanad presents a very different picture.
Wayanad has repeatedly proven itself to be one of the safest Congress constituencies in India. Rahul Gandhi won the seat in 2024 with a margin exceeding 3.64 lakh votes. Later, Priyanka Gandhi retained the seat in the by-election with an even larger margin of over 4.08 lakh votes. BJP remained a distant third, polling barely 1.09 lakh votes compared to LDF’s 2.11 lakh.
The contrast is clear:
Alappuzha is competitive, trending toward BJP, and strategically coveted by Delhi. Wayanad is structurally secure for Congress with a three-election record of dominant margins.
Why Priyanka Gandhi Emerges as the Logical Answer
If Priyanka Gandhi becomes Chief Minister:
Congress avoids the bitter factional war between Satheesan, Chennithala, and Venugopal — no Kerala faction feels completely defeated, because the decision comes from above the contest entirely. The leadership transition gains national legitimacy and media attention that works in the party’s favour. Congress retains control over the narrative instead of descending into damaging group warfare. And even if Priyanka vacates Wayanad, Congress would remain overwhelming favourites to retain the seat in a by-election.
Most importantly, the party buys time. Instead of forcing an immediate winner-takes-all battle among Kerala Congress factions, Priyanka’s leadership could serve as a stabilising bridge while the high command quietly negotiates the future balance of power inside the state unit.
Why Priyanka, Specifically — Not Just Why Not the Others
This is the question the article must answer honestly: beyond avoiding a faction war, why does Priyanka Gandhi deserve to lead Kerala on her own merit?
The answer begins with something that is easy to overlook: she is not an outsider to Kerala.
When Priyanka Gandhi chose to contest from Wayanad in the 2024 by-election, she did not treat it as a political assignment. She treated it as a personal commitment. She travelled across districts, listened to farmers, sat with landslide survivors from the devastating Wayanad tragedy, and connected with ordinary Keralites in a way that went beyond campaign optics. Keralites saw a leader who chose their state when she had easier options available elsewhere.
That matters. It changes the narrative entirely — from “Delhi is imposing someone on Kerala” to “Kerala’s own MP is stepping up to lead.”
Furthermore, unlike the other contenders in this race, Priyanka carries no factional debt. Satheesan is seen as the Malappuram-Kozhikode faction’s man. Chennithala carries the weight of his own long political history and past rivalries. Venugopal is identified with the Delhi-aligned organisational wing. Each of them, the moment they become Chief Minister, begins governing with one eye on the internal party opposition they have created by winning.
Priyanka has none of that baggage. She stands above the factions — not because she is distant from Kerala politics, but because she entered Kerala politics through the people, not through the party machinery. No group within Kerala Congress feels threatened by her. No one within the UDF will publicly raise a voice against a Gandhi stepping forward to lead. That silence — that absence of opposition — is itself a form of political capital that money and organisational muscle cannot buy.
And there is something larger at play. Kerala is a state that has always responded to political leadership that combines emotional intelligence with administrative seriousness. Priyanka’s visible grief over the Wayanad landslide victims, her personal engagement with the people of the constituency, and her communication style — direct, warm, and without the usual political distance — position her well with a Kerala electorate that values exactly these qualities.
She is not the conventional choice. But convention has not served Kerala Congress particularly well in recent decades.
Addressing the Constitutional Reality
One practical question must be answered directly. A Chief Minister must be a member of the state legislature — not Parliament. Priyanka Gandhi is currently a Lok Sabha MP. Under Article 164 of the Constitution, a non-legislator can be appointed Chief Minister but must win a seat in the state assembly within six months.
This is a real procedural step, but not an insurmountable one.
If Priyanka Gandhi is named Chief Minister, the party would need to arrange a friendly Kerala assembly constituency for her to contest in a by-election. Given UDF’s sweeping 102-seat mandate, multiple safe assembly segments would be available where a sitting MLA could vacate to facilitate this. A UDF legislator from a rock-solid seat stepping aside for the Chief Minister-designate is not an unusual arrangement in Indian politics.
The net result: a Wayanad Lok Sabha by-election (safe) and one Kerala assembly by-election (manageable within a stronghold) — both far less dangerous than handing Alappuzha over as a gift to the BJP’s Kerala ambitions.
The Bigger Picture: Congress’s Real Enemy in Kerala
Congress’s biggest threat in Kerala today may not be the CPI(M). It may be internal fragmentation, combined with a BJP that is systematically turning every Congress misstep into a territorial gain.
The BJP understands that Kerala will not fall to ideology alone. Its Kerala growth strategy depends on exploiting Congress disunity, leadership ego battles, and avoidable by-elections. Every leadership crisis, every faction war spilled into public view, and every unnecessary parliamentary by-election becomes an opening for the BJP to slowly expand its footprint — one constituency, one vote share point, one by-election at a time.
If K.C. Venugopal vacates Alappuzha — after already surrendering the Rajasthan Rajya Sabha seat — critics will rightly argue that his political transitions have twice created avoidable openings for the BJP at a critical national moment. Congress must think beyond individual ambitions.
A Chief Minister is not merely an administrative appointment. It is a strategic electoral and organisational decision with long-term consequences for the party in the state.
Priyanka Gandhi may not be the traditional Kerala Congress choice. But perhaps that is precisely why she could be the wisest one.