Three weeks before the election that would make him Chief Minister, VD Satheesan disappeared into the mountains.
On 13 April, without informing his party leaders or the media, he checked into a small resort in Kuttikanam, in the tea and cardamom hills of Idukki, with his wife, their daughter, and a childhood friend. They trekked the misty peaks of the Western Ghats—Amrithamedu, Panchalimedu, Parunthumpara—and returned without making a public appearance. The trip was only discovered when a Congress worker posted photographs online with the caption “In the forest, not in exile.” It went viral.
On 14 May, after 10 days of deliberation that tested the patience of a state that gave the Congress its most decisive mandate since 1977, the party named the 61-year-old lawyer, reader, and six-time MLA from Paravur as Kerala’s next chief minister. Rahul Gandhi personally informed the two other contenders—KC Venugopal and Ramesh Chennithala—that the decision had been made. Satheesan arrived at his official residence in Thiruvananthapuram, walked through a crowd of supporters, and said nothing.
In choosing Satheesan over a Delhi insider and a factional veteran, the Congress has made an unusual bet—on a leader whose reputation is built on legislative competence, constituency presence, and organisational discipline rather than on lineage, factional loyalty, or proximity to the high command.