Congress Organisational Head KC Venugopal Contesting From Alappuzha (Photo on X K C Venugopal @kcvenugopalmp)
KC Venugopal, considered a close aide of the Gandhi family and one of the top figures in the national Congress leadership, has been given a third chance from Alappuzha Lok Sabha constituency. Known as “KC” in the party circle, Venugopal first got his Lok Sabha ticket at the age of 28 while he was serving as the president of Kerala Student Union, the student wing of the Congress party. But he lost the election narrowly in his debut from Kasaragod.
KC, then famous as a youth leader, emerged challenging the dominance of the then Congress veterans such as AK Antony and Karunakaran in the 1995s. Calling themselves “reformists” within the party, the then youth leaders including Venugopal, Ramesh Chennithala, G Karthikeyan and MI Shanavas questioned the dominance of the veterans and gained the limelight in the party.
Beginning as a student activist, Venugopal has completed a post-graduation in mathematics. He rose from the political hotspot of Kannur and exhibited unflinching willingness and organisational skills to take leadership roles.
It was in 1996 that Venugopal first became an elected representative from Alappuzha assembly constituency. He retained the seat consecutively in 2001 and 2006. He was made a Minister in 2004 under the Oommen Chandy-led UDF government in Kerala. In 2009, in his second Lok Sabha endeavour, he secured victory and became a union minister of state under the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government. He was re-elected in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections which saw the Congress party”s electoral debacle nationwide.
Mr Venugopal did not contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and was made the Rajya Sabha MP in 2020. In 2019, CPM”s AM Ariff captured the Alappuzha constituency defeating the Congress candidate Shanimol Usman with a narrow majority. With the party picking the two-time former MP from the seat, the party has confidence that its national organisational head can easily sail through the fight to victory. The 61-year-old politician declared an asset of over two crore in his last election affidavit.
As a remarkable development in Venugopal”s life, In 2017, Rahul Gandhi picked him for the position of General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee and was made the general secretary of the organisation later. The surprising decision for many raised the image of Venugopal as one of the defining central leaders of the party. Notably, in 2023, he was made the member of the coordination committee of the INDIA bloc responsible for formulating the national agenda and campaign conceptions.
It was reported that it was Venugopal who convinced Rahul Gandhi to contest a second seat in Wayanad, Kerala in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as he anticipated the political change in Uttar Pradesh.
