Thiruvananthapuram: In 2015, Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP) general secretary Vellappally Nadesan said a person has to be born a Muslim in Kerala to get fair compensation from the government in accidental deaths.
The trigger was the then United Democratic Front (UDF) government announcing Rs 10 lakh and a government job to the family member of auto driver Noushad, who died while trying to rescue two migrant workers stuck in a manhole.
One of the first political leaders to call out the SNDP leader was Pinarayi Vijayan, then Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), polit bureau member, who said Vellappy had “surpassed all other communal lunatics”.
A decade later, Vellappally raised many hackles after he said that Malappuram district was another country where communities other than Muslims couldn’t breathe. But this time, Vijayan, now the chief minister, defended him saying the Ezhava leader was not against any religion or community, but his views were against one particular party, without naming the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).
From donning a keffiyeh to express solidarity with Palestinians during the party Congress while continuously training guns against the IUML for ‘joining hands with pan islamist forces’, the ruling CPI(M) is caught in the difficult act of balancing its secular image while appeasing the Hindus in Kerala.
“During the Lok Sabha elections, they (read, CPI(M)) positioned themselves as an anti-BJP and pro-minority party. But they didn’t get the Muslim votes they expected, and the UDF benefited from it. The party also believes that there was major erosion in the Hindu, especially Ezhava votes,” Kerala-based political analyst K.P.Sethunath said.
Classified as an Other Backward Class (OBC) community, the Ezhavas constitute 23 percent of the population in Kerala and form the largest support base for the Communist party. Vijayan himself is from this community, who were traditionally into did toddy tapping.
Founded in 1903 by Padmanabhan Palpu, the SNDP represents the Ezhava community in Kerala. In 2015, the SNDP launched its political wing Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), which is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Sethunath said the CPI(M) is trying to position itself as a ‘pro-Hindu’, while also maintaining a good relationship with the Muslim community leaders. Maintaining a good relationship with the SNDP is crucial for the party to regain its vote base, he added.
“They say the Muslim League is okay. But they have been hijacked by the pan-Islamist forces such as Jamaat-e-Islami, and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).”
Not that the CPI(M) denies this stand. “The League is accepting support from the SDPI and Jamaat-e-Islami these days. We are only exposing them,” senior party leader K.V.Abdul Khader told ThePrint. The party realised that there was an erosion of votes to the BJP, but it is not ready to change its politics, as the reason for the Lok Sabha polls was “national”, he added.
An SNDP functionary based in Thiruvananthapuram said the political distance between Vijayan and Vellappally has reduced significantly after the Lok Sabha polls. The functionary said many of the Ezhava community members voted for the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls as the party had conducted intense campaigns focusing on each SNDP yogam office in Kerala.
“The Pinarayi Vijayan government knows that Ezhava votes are crucial for them to retain power. The CM is making conscious efforts to keep Vellappally close to him,” the functionary said, adding that Vellappally too thinks that the CPI(M) got the chance of winning the Assembly polls.
Kerala—the only state where the CPI(M) is in power—will go to the polls next year.
IUML leader C. P. Cheriya Muhammed said his party is taking the CM’s continued attack on the party very seriously. “The League has always taken secular stands in its politics. But now, the CM is instigating communal sentiments among voters for the benefit of the Assembly elections. That might work for the elections, but the society would be deeply divided,” he said, adding Vijayan’s statements are targeted to get the Ezhava votes it lost during the Lok Sabha polls.
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LS polls debacle
Positioning itself as the protector of minorities, the CPI(M)’s major bet on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls was its stand against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The party held mass anti-CAA rallies, five of which were attended by Vijayan himself in different districts.
However, the party faced a major setback as it lost 19 of the 20 seats it contested, except the Alathur SC-reserved constituency. Its vote share dwindled from 36.29 percent in 2019 to 33.34 in 2024.
In contrast, the NDA increased its vote share to 19.24 percent in 2019 from 15.64 percent to 2024. While the BJP not just made history by finally getting a Lok Sabha MP through Suresh Gopi in Thrissur, it also finished first in 11 assembly segments: five in Thiruvananthapuram (Nemom, Kazhakkoottam, Vattiyoorkavu, Attingal, and Kattakkada) and six in Thrissur (Thrissur, Ollur, Natika, Irinjalakuda, Puthukad, and Manalur), all represented by the Left MLAs.
The increase, according to the CSDS Lokniti post-poll survey, in BJP’s vote share was a result of a ‘slight change’ in demographic voting patterns as 45 percent of the Nairs and 32 percent of the Ezhavas moved to the BJP. Kerala also witnessed five percent of the Christian community voting for the BJP for the first time, it said.
The same survey in 2021 found that the two minority communities, Christians and Muslims, who mostly support the UDF, contributed to the Left’s victory. It includes 39 percent each of Christian and Muslim populations voting for the Left compared to 35 percent who voted for the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in 2026. With 53 percent of the Ezhavas choosing the Left, it formed the LDF’s largest support base. The NDA’s support from the same community was 23 percent.
Some of the major setbacks the party faced were in its southern bastion of Attingal and Alappuzha, where the BJP’s vote share saw a significant jump. Located in southern Kerala, the Ezhava community forms a major vote share in these two seats.
In Alappuzha, BJP’s Sobha Surendran increased the NDA’s vote share to 28.3 percent from 17.24 percent, while the LDF’s vote share dwindled to 32.2 percent from 40.96 percent. The seat was won by Congress’s K.C. Venugopal. Likewise, in Attingal, BJP’s V. Muraleedharan’s vote share rose to 31.64 percent from 24.97 percent, and LDF’s vote decreased to 33.22 percent from 34.50 percent.
Athul Nandan, a research scholar of political science at Kerala University, said the party’s continuous attack on Hindutva might have been perceived as an attack against the Hindu identity itself by the community.
“It’s a thin line, and the people might have misunderstood it,” Athul said, adding that though the party was able to mobilise people for the anti-CAA protests, it wasn’t converted to votes.
He said the votes from Ezhavas and Hindus are crucial to maintain power in Kerala for political survival of the CPI(M).
“The Ezhava movement has a significant hold in central and southern districts. The CPI(M)’s defence of Vellappally is to maintain that friendship with the community,” Athul said.
Sethunath said that though a significant vote share of the community was shifted for the BJP in 2024, the voters might choose the Left party, as it’s an assembly poll. “They know that the BJP can’t come to power in the state. So, they might consider the CPI(M) as their option,” he explained.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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