Kerala bypoll heats up, into ‘Your minority outfit’ vs ‘My minority outfit’

The June 19 by-election was necessitated by the resignation of the CPI(M)-backed Independent legislator P V Anvar from the seat. A win will be a boost for the CPI(M) ahead of the Assembly elections next year, which it is entering with a two-term anti-insurgency behind it. Similarly, the Congress is hoping to wrest Nilambur to put a spoke in the Pinarayi Vijayan government’s wheels.

The poll talk veered to Muslim minority politics after the Welfare Party of India announced its backing for the Congress. Its state president Rasak Paleri said Monday that the Left’s politics was creating “dangerous polarisation” among people in Kerala, and the bypoll would be a verdict against the Vijayan government.

The CPI(M), which has been trying to distance itself from the charge of “Muslim appeasement” that is believed to have cost it the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Kerala, seized on the Welfare Party support to attack the Congress.

CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan said Tuesday that the Congress-led UDF “has turned into a communal front”. “The UDF has links with all communal, extremist forces. The Jamaat-e-Islami has turned into the masthead of the Indian Union Muslim League (an ally of the Congress). This will have far-reaching consequences.”

Govindan added that the CPI(M) is “a secular party” and said it will not have “any links with the Jamaat-e-Islami”. The Jamaat used to back the LDF before moving to the Congress camp, seeing the Congress as the only alternative that could stop a rising BJP.

As CPI(M) leaders stepped up their attack on the Congress over the Jamaat support, the Congress launched an offensive over the support to it by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Kerala. Its chairman Madani, at one time, had followers who joined the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba, and he is himself facing charges in connection with the Bengaluru blast of 2008. He was also charged in the 1998 Coimbatore serial blasts case, but was acquitted.

Leader of the Opposition V D Satheesan said: “Those who deplore Welfare Party support to the Congress have no qualms over the PDP support for the CPI(M). People realise the double standards of the CPI(M). When the Jamaat-e-Islami and its political party supported the CPI(M), they were secular. When they started backing the Congress, these organisations (became) communal!”

Satheesan said the CPI(M) had, in fact, “openly welcomed Jamaat support when Pinarayi Vijayan was the party state secretary”.

Govindan replied to this saying the PDP could not be likened to the Jamaat. Calling the PDP “a persecuted party”, the CPI(M) leader said: “They no longer have a communal stand nor have they adopted the Jamaat-e-Islami’s support for a religious regime.”

The ties between the Jamaat and CPI(M) once were so thick that the Left outfit had taken the support of the Welfare Party of India, formed in 2011, to run several local bodies in Kerala till 2020. But the Jamaat distanced itself from the CPI(M) starting 2019 as the BJP under Narendra Modi doubled its efforts to make inroads into Kerala. With the BJP on the rise across the country, the Jamaat calculated that only the Congress could take on the Sangh Parivar, including in Kerala.

Incidentally, outside the state, the Jamaat continues to have ties with the CPI(M) wherever the party has a presence.

The PDP too has been backing the CPI(M) for a while now, especially since Madani’s acquittal. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the CPI(M) had even fielded Madani’s nominee as the LDF candidate from Ponnani, with Vijayan sharing the stage with the controversial leader.

The CPI(M) feels the need to recalibrate its Muslim pitch after the rout of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Kerala, where the party primarily fought on minority issues such as opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

When Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi fought a by-election in Wayanad last year, one of the main charges lobbed by Vijayan against her was that she contested with “the support of the Jamaat-e-Islami, which is against a democratic system”. The Jamaat wanted an “Islamic regime”, he said.

Getting the Hindu vote is crucial in Nilambur, as they make up 45% of the voters in the Assembly seat. While the CPI(M) has put up a Hindu candidate, Congress candidate Shoukkath and Anvar, who is contesting too, are Muslim and could split the 43% Muslim minority vote.

The BJP, which does not have much stakes in the bypoll, chose to field not a Hindu candidate but Mohan George, a former leader of the Kerala Congress (a regional Christian party). The move is seen as part of the party’s efforts to draw Christians in Kerala. However, not many in the Sangh Parivar are convinced, and some have been even attacking it on social media for going with a Christian – who joined the party on the eve of the bypoll – in a seat where they form less than 10% of the population.