India, May 10 -- KC Venugopal has spent years running party matters for the Congress from Delhi. The question now is whether he gets to run a government from Thiruvananthapuram.

The Congress-led United Democratic Front's (UDF) decisive victory in the Kerala assembly elections - 102 seats in a 140-member House, with Congress alone winning 63 - has set off a three-cornered contest for the chief ministership that points to some divisions between the party's central leadership and its state-level workers.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chief Rahul Gandhi, who is Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, were yet to announce a final decision as of Sunday night, even as May 23, the deadline for government formation, d...