NEW DELHI: India’s main opposition party Congress named the chief minister for the southern state of Kerala on Thursday, after a rare decisive election victory.

The Congress party, led by Rahul Gandhi, was a dominant force for decades — but has dramatically lost ground to the Hindu-nationalist Bhara­tiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and now directly controls just four states.

The win was the lone bright spot for Congress in the state elections held in April and May, which saw Modi’s BJP consolidate its dominance after setbacks in the 2024 national parliamentary election.

Congress lawmakers chose 61-year-old veteran leader V.D. Satheesan to lead the relatively prosperous state of approximately 36 million people, state party leader Deepa Dasmunshi told reporters in New Delhi.

Party chooses 61-year-old Satheesan to lead relatively prosperous state

In Kerala, a Congress-led alliance defeated the Left Democratic Front after two consecutive terms, winning 102 of 140 seats and ending India’s last Communist-led state government.

Congress now controls four states — Kerala, Karnataka and Telangana in the south, and the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh in the north.

Modi’s BJP celebrated a landmark victory in West Bengal this month, expanding its dominance beyond the Hindi-speaking heartland of north and central India, into the largely Bengali-speaking state of more than 100 million.

Analysts say the BJP’s victory is one of its most significant since Modi was first elected prime minister in 2014.

In West Bengal, the BJP defeated Mamata Banerjee, leader of the regional All India Trinamool Congress, a key figure in India’s wider Congress-led opposition alliance.

And in Tamil Nadu, M.K. Stalin was defeated — another powerful member of that opposition alliance — with film star C. Joseph Vijay’s two-year-old Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam party taking the largest share of seats.

Vijay was sworn in as chief minister with the support of the Congress party.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2026