2 weeks ago
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Uncertainty continued to loom implicit the Congress’s Chief Minister prime for Kerala, with the party’s precocious bid yet to instrumentality a last telephone pursuing marathon discussions with the State enactment successful New Delhi connected Saturday (May, 9, 2026).
The hold has raised questions astir whether the All India Congress Committee’s (AICC) effort to scope a mediate crushed betwixt opposing factions has flatlined, astatine slightest temporarily.
Senior Congress leaders successful Kerala said that the result of Congress nationalist president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi’s closed-door talks with Leader of the Opposition V. D. Satheesan and elder person Ramesh Chennithala — the 2 apical contenders for the apical station — remained unclear arsenic of Sunday (May 10). AICC wide caput K. C. Venugopal and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Sunny Joseph, the MLA-designate, were besides portion of the discussions.
Party leaders claimed the KPCC was yet to person immoderate definitive connection from the precocious bid connected the contentious Congress Legislative Party (CLP) enactment question, but a stringent absorption to trim nationalist posturing and societal media sabre-rattling implicit what has emerged arsenic an acrimonious three-way enactment tussle.
The contention has threatened to further deepen the factional responsibility lines wrong the party’s provincial portion aft the United Democratic Front’s (UDF) win.
A KPCC insider said the AICC had taken beardown objection to what it perceived arsenic concerted attempts by rival factions to strong-arm the precocious bid into settling the enactment contented connected their terms.
Seemingly successful deference to the AICC’s directive, enactment workers owing allegiance to antithetic factions took down immoderate of the hoardings and posters endorsing their favoured Chief Ministerial candidates, which had been prominently displayed successful beforehand of enactment offices.
However, the skirmish implicit Congress’ 3 Chief Minister probables continued to rage connected societal media and showed scant signs of abating. Senior leaders, including K. C. Joseph, person complained to the KPCC that their names were being inadvertently drawn into what seemed to beryllium an untamable internecine feud connected societal media by “factional fighters” who person created fake accounts to lobby for their respective leaders.
