VD Satheesan, senior Congress leader and six-time Congress MLA, on Thursday was named as the new chief minister of Kerala, ending 10 days of marathon deliberations after the United Democratic Front’s sweeping Assembly election victory. The three main contenders for the post of chief minister were Satheesan, KC Venugopal and Ramesh Chennithala. The announcement came a day after former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge for about 40 minutes, after which the Congress stated that all deliberations and discussions by the high command are complete.
A decision on the next Kerala chief minister had been pending since May 4 when the Congress-led UDF bagged 102 seats out of the 140, which is more than a two-thirds majority. The party's central leadership held wider consultations as the uncertainty continued for days even after party observers Maken and Wasnik met Congress MLAs and gathered their views. The party leadership had also held discussions with the three main contenders for the post and KPCC president Sunny Joseph.
The Congress has 63 MLAs in the 140-member Kerala Assembly. Its allies Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has 22, Kerala Congress (KEC) has eight and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) three. The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), one of the UDF’s most influential allies, openly supported Satheesan. At the same time, the Congress central leadership was weighing organisational equations, caste-community optics, Delhi influence and long-term national strategy before taking a final call.
Who is VD Satheesan?
Satheesan served as the Leader of Opposition in Keralam Assembly before the UDF's decisive victory in the 2026 Keralam Assembly elections. The alliance won 102 seats in the 140-member assembly. Satheesan secured 78,658 votes and defeated CPI candidate ET Taison Master by a margin of 20,600 votes. He has represented the Paravur constituency for 25 years, having first won the seat in 2001.
As the Leader of the Opposition in the Kerala Legislative Assembly since 2021, Satheesan emerged as a prominent face of the United Democratic Front (UDF) campaign against the ruling Left government. He has been a vocal critic of the state government on various political and governance issues.
Born in 1964 in Nettoor near Kochi, VD Satheesan comes from a Congress background rooted in grassroots politics rather than Delhi power circles. He is a trained lawyer and social worker and entered politics through the Kerala Students Union (KSU) before steadily climbing the Congress ladder.
Later, he became active in the Youth Congress and gradually built a reputation as a sharp speaker and aggressive political organiser. Interestingly, VD Satheesan represented the Paravur Assembly constituency since 2001 and over the years established himself as one of the Congress’s strongest legislative voices in Kerala. Just unlike several senior Congress leaders shaped by factional politics, Satheesan projected himself as part of a younger and relatively reform-oriented generation within the party.
VD Satheesan won the Paravur Assembly seat for the sixth time in a row in 2026 by defeating Communist Party of India's (CPI) ET Taison Master with a margin of 20,600 votes. He won the Paravur Assembly seat for the first time in 2001 and retained it in 2006, 2011, 2016, 2021 and 2026.
Satheesan’s biggest political breakthrough in 2021
After the Congress-led UDF suffered defeat to the Left Front under Pinarayi Vijayan, the party unexpectedly chose Satheesan as Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly. At that time, many saw the decision as risky because he had never served as a minister and lacked administrative experience.
Know all about Kerala Assembly Election Results 2026
The United Democratic Front (UDF) secured a decisive mandate in the recent Kerala Assembly elections, winning 102 seats. The Congress emerged as the single largest party with 63 seats, while the Left Democratic Front (LDF), which had won 99 seats in 2021, was reduced to 35 seats.
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VD Satheesan, Leader of Opposition and six-time Congress MLA, to be next Kerala Chief Minister
