Kerala CM will be announced on Thursday, and looks like it is VD Satheesan

Even on the tenth day after the Assembly results were out, the Congress 'high command' has been unable to resolve the Chief Minister question.

Congress general secretary in charge of communication, Jairam Ramesh, however, said that all discussions on the issue had concluded. “The decision on who the Chief Minister of Kerala would be will be declared on Thursday (May 14),” Ramesh told reporters who swarmed the entrance gate of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's official residence in Delhi.

Jairam Ramesh's statement came an hour after Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi held a 45-minute one-to-one with Kharge at his residence.

There are indications that the 'high command' has zeroed in on V D Satheesan. One of which was NSS general secretary Sukumaran Nair holding a press conference quickly after Jairam Ramesh's announcement, in which he lashed out at the Muslim League for interfering in Congress's affairs. "What have parties like the Muslim League got to do with an internal matter of the Congress. This is not democracy," an evidently distraught Nair said. It is uncharacteristic of Nair to conduct such rushed media interactions.

The NSS supremo has on many occasions expressed his dislike for Satheesan. And Satheesan, in turn, has said that he would keep community leaders at an arm's length. It looked like a desperate attempt by the NSS supremo to influence the Congress choice.

Another hint that Satheesan was emerging as the CM was the Muslim League's decision to call off a high-level meeting it had scheduled on Wednesday evening. It was widely believed that during the proposed meeting, the League leadership would go into a huddle and emerge sounding the bugle of a mini-rebellion.

Nonetheless, the meeting was cancelled long before Jairam Ramesh's statement, suggesting that the League was assured by the Congress leadership that "public sentiment would not be subverted". During this intense tussle for the CM post, 'public sentiment' has been euphemism for 'Satheesan as CM'.

Another important ally, the Kerala Congress led by P J Joseph, has also made it clear on Wednesday that the CM should be chosen from among the elected MLAs.

Information from the ground, too, seemed to favour Satheesan. A highly placed source said that the top Congress leaders in Delhi were informed by what he lightly called 'undercover agents' that the upswell of public support for Satheesan was "spontaneous and not engineered".

It is said that in the earlier stages of this fight for the CM's chair, the ploy was to turn the 'high command' against Satheesan by fabricating a narrative that the support marches in various parts of Kerala were deliberately instigated by the managers of the Satheesan group. There were reports that Rahul Gandhi was miffed by these public demonstrations of support.

On the other hand, the 'high command' was also apprised of wilful attempts to tarnish the image of Satheesan. A news channel supposedly controlled by the Congress party has been relentlessly reporting on Satheesan's alleged secret meeting with a top Adani official at the house of an NDA leader. The Congress leadership had largely remained indifferent to the allegation but, after the CPM used it as a weapon to attack Satheesan, was persuaded to view it as an attempt to sabotage his chances.

On May 12, LDF convenor T P Ramakrishnan said that the AICC should respond to the charges levelled by the news channel. This gave the impression that even the CPM is against Satheesan, rendering his competitors, particularly K C Venugopal, the CPM's preferred candidate. Earlier, a senior CPM worker in Thrissur was caught on camera furtively erecting posters for K C Venugopal.

When the CPM seems too eager to thwart his chances, Satheesan's eligibility to be the CM has been further bolstered.