V.D. Satheesan says CPI(M) leader A.K. Balan’s Jamaat-e-Islami remarks ‘echo Hindu majoritarian narrative’

Kerala’s Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan on Wednesday (January 7, 2026) said CPI(M) leader and former Minister A.K. Balan’s “schismatic” statement that “the Jamaat-e-Islami would control the Home department” if the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) came to power in the State echoed “a Hindu majoritarian perspective which sought to portray Muslims as subaltern citizens and disrupters.”

Speaking to reporters in Thiruvananthapuram, Mr. Satheesan compared Mr. Balan’s statement to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s poll campaign in Gujarat (in the year Narendra Modi became the Chief Minister for the first time in that State). Mr. Satheesan noted that the BJP had claimed at the hustings that “Ahmed Patel, a Muslim by birth, would become Chief Minister if the Congress came to power” in Gujarat then.

Mr. Satheesan said the CPI(M) was “increasingly speaking in the same bigoted voice of the Sangh Parivar.” He alleged that the party had backslid into becoming “an apologist” for SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan, who has made a “habit of recurrently villainising” Muslims, especially those in north Kerala.

He said the CPI(M)’s “rightward drift” has destabilised the LDF. The CPI(M) has attacked Communist Party of India (CPI) State secretary Binoy Viswam for “calling out Mr. Natesan’s schismatic politics.” Mr. Viswam had signalled that the CPI(M) should dissociate the LDF from divisive voices in society and condemn attempts to tear Kerala’s secular fabric. “The CPI(M) responded by branding Mr. Viswam a traitor,” he said.

Mr. Satheesan said the Jamaat-e-Islami had become an anathema for the CPI(M) after the organisation withdrew its four-decade-long unconditional support for the LDF. He said the CPI(M)’s “spite” for the Muslim organisation stemmed from the LDF’s failure to secure minority community support in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. “Subsequently, the CPI(M) changed tack, abandoned secular politics and is stoking Hindutva to get majoritarian votes,” he alleged.

Mr. Satheesan’s attack on the CPI(M) comes against the backdrop of the party’s district secretariat member in Palakkad, A.K. Ajayakumar, attacking Mr. Viswam for “putting the LDF on the defensive” during the crucial local body polls.

(Mr. Viswam had stridently opposed the government’s “surreptitious signing” of the “revanchist” New Education Policy (NEP)-linked PM-SHRI scheme to release federal funding for school education, opening the door for the UDF to weaponise the decision as LDF’s alleged capitulation to the Sangh Parivar agenda during the local body campaign).

Mr. Ajayakumar had also accused Mr. Viswam and the CPI of lacking the political heft to engage in one-upmanship within the LDF and alleged that Mr. Viswam was playing to the gallery to score brownie points with the right-wing media.

Meanwhile, E.N. Suresh Babu, CPI(M) district secretary, Palakkad, sought to dissociate the party from Mr. Ajayakumar’s contentious remarks. Speaking to reporters in Palakkad, he said the CPI(M)-CPI unity laid the groundwork for the LDF’s consecutive victories in the past two Assembly elections.

“The solidarity remains as firm as ever. Moreover, such comments against Mr. Viswam are unwarranted and require urgent rectification,” he said.