K C Venugopal returns to Kerala fray as Congress looks to settle score with CPI(M) in prestige battle

Opposite the huge grey bust of Lord Shiva on the western entrance of Mararikulam Mahadeva Temple, the front yard of a two-storey house of a local Congress supporter is dotted with the party workers in white khadis. They are busy arranging chairs, setting up microphones, and laying a red carpet on the grainy sands of the coastal region to welcome the leader they fondly call “KC”.

The contest for the Alappuzha seat has turned into a prestige battle for the Congress with All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary K C Venugopal’s return to the Lok Sabha poll fray after 2014 as the party looks to wrest the only seat it lost to the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) in its landslide 19-1 victory in Kerala in the 2019 polls.

Venugopal, 61, has not lost any major election in his career. He won the Alappuzha Assembly seat thrice in a row — in 1996, 2001, and 2006 and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Alappuzha in 2009 and 2014. In 2019, he did not contest after the party elevated him to the post of the AICC general secretary (organisation).

In Venugopal’s absence, the CPI(M)’s A M Ariff gave the LDF a consolation win in the constituency in 2019. However, the margin of victory – 10,474 votes – was the lowest in the state. This time, besides Venugopal, Ariff faces a challenge from the BJP, which has fielded its firebrand leader Sobha Surendran from the seat.

The CPI(M), which is a part of the Opposition INDIA bloc at the national level, has slammed the Congress for fielding Venugopal, who has been a Rajya Sabha MP from the BJP-ruled Rajasthan, claiming his Lok Sabha victory could help the BJP bolster its numbers in the Upper House.

Venugopal’s supporters, however, are having none of it. “His Rajya Sabha tenure ends in two