Hectic parleys are underway in New Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram to choose the new Kerala chief minister from the Congress.

The AICC is expected to send a team of observers to Kerala within the next few days to finalise the chief minister. The party is torn between three contenders — AICC general secretary and sitting Alappuzha MP K.C. Venugopal, Opposition leader V.D. Satheesan and Congress working committee leader Ramesh Chennithala.

Venugopal, who has emerged as the frontrunner, has held one-to-one talks with the MLAs.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi were huddled in New Delhi to address the imbroglio. Venugopal, despite being in the national capital, stayed away from the meeting.

The tug-of-war over the top post has taken the focus away from the Congress’s performance in the Assembly polls, in which it pocketed 63 seats.

The Venugopal camp has claimed the support of 52 MLAs, 14 Congress MPs and veteran leaders from the state. A Venugopal loyalist told The Telegraph that he had directly led the Congress campaign in Kerala and was not airdropped from New Delhi.

“Venugopal has a long track record in Kerala, where he held the posts of an MLA and an MP for three terms each. He rose through the ranks of the Kerala Students Union — the students’ wing of the Congress in the state — where he served as president and later became the president of the Youth Congress. He ensured that no rebel candidates were fielded in the recent elections at a time there were several threats from various constituencies,” a Venugopal loyalist said.

This has not gone down well with Satheesan, who led “Team United Democratic Front”, which won 102 of the 140 seats in the state. The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the second-largest ally in the UDF with 22 MLAs, has also endorsed Satheesan, who also has the backing of the general public.

“The role played by Satheesan in the recent Assembly elections and in the previous three by-elections cannot be undermined. He single-handedly tackled chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan within the Assembly and outside,” a Satheesan loyalist told this newspaper.

Chennithala has staked a claim to the chief minister’s chair based on his seniority. He is disappointed with the raw deal he got at the hands of the AICC leadership after the 2021 Assembly elections when he was overlooked and Satheesan was made the Opposition leader.

Satheesan and Chennithala appear to have joined forces to ensure that Venugopal does not get the chief minister’s chair. The ball is now in Rahul’s court, and he is keeping his cards close to his chest.

Vijayan is scheduled to hold a media conference in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday.

The caretaker chief minister has moved from his official residence at Cliff House to the party apartment next to the state CPM headquarters.

Vijayan has not yet reacted to the Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) poll drubbing. Among the 19 ministers in the LDF, 13 have lost.