Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's confident proclamation of a third consecutive win for the LDF at a press briefing on Thursday could not disguise his panic about the CPM's growing inability to hold on to its self-trumpeted status as the only secular alternative in Kerala. The unanticipated losses at the local body polls had served as a warning.

On Thursday, even while expressing confidence that his government had transformed Kerala in indisputable ways, the CM made a strenuous attempt to claw back into the lost secular space. There were two parts to his strategy.

One, Pinarayi reminded the Muslim community of what he called the Congress's repulsive anti-minority behaviour in the past. Even CPM circles confess in private that the Muslim community has been rattled by the creeping suspicion that the party has a surreptitious pact with the BJP and also by the unfettered run given to SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan to retail Muslim hate.

And while subtly sending feelers to the Muslim community, the CM also made sure that the majority community was kept in good humour, a strategy the party had adopted in quite an aggressive fashion after the massive defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

This he did mainly by validating what former minister A K Balan said. On January 6, Balan said that Jamaat-e-Islami would run the Home Department if the UDF came to power and also that the state could witness more 'Marad riots'-like explosive communal incidents.

Without entering into the merits of Balan's remarks, the CM said: "What we need to understand here is that the Kerala of today is a model for the country. There are no communal tensions, no communal riots. But in the past, you could see a completely different Kerala. I think this is what comrade Balan tried to bring to our notice."

The CM was referring to the 2003 Marad riots in which nine were killed, eight Hindu fishermen and a Muslim, allegedly involved in the massacre. The Thomas P Joseph Commission of Enquiry, which submitted its report in 2006, had implicated the Indian Union Muslim League and the extremist Muslim organisation National Development Front.

In what could be called a move of uncommon political dexterity, he used the Marad riots, an attack on Hindu fishermen, to vilify the Congress and also sympathise with the Muslim community. He said the then Chief Minister, A K Antony, had refused to take his Muslim minister (K Kunhalikutty) along with him to the riot-torn areas on the orders of the RSS". "What does this show," Pinarayi threw a clipped rhetorical poser that loudly suggested that the Congress did not have the spine to take a Muslim minister along fearing the RSS.

At the same time, the CM said that he too had visited the affected families in Marad. "But I did not take anyone's permission to go there," he said. "Why did a Chief Minister of Kerala adopt such a stand? That reveals their approach. The problem is in the way they approach communalism. It is this weak-kneed attitude that caused a conflagration of communal issues and led to the spread of communal strife during the UDF tenure. The UDF could not take a firm stand against sectarianism," he said.

In contrast, the CM said that his government had stood up against communal forces. "These forces are still out there, but they are not given a chance to do what they want. We can never compromise with extreme elements," the CM said.

He also reminded the minorities of how the Congress could be chameleon-like in its attitude towards them. He recalled former Chief Minister A K Antony's controversial remark that the minorities were using their organisational might to secure disproportionate benefits. "Antony added for good measure that other communities also held such a grouse," Pinarayi said.

Ramesh Chennithala's speech while he was KPCC president was also recalled by the CM. He said that Chennithala, during a memorial event for former KPCC president C K Govindan Nair, recollected Nair's warning that offering two or more seats to the Muslim League in Malabar would embolden the League to ask for more in future.

"In his speech, Chennithala said that Govindan Nair's prophecy had turned out to be absolutely true," Pinarayi said, and added: "Chennithala as KPCC president was in effect upholding Govindan Nair's philosophy that a 'lakshmana rekha' should be drawn when the Congress enters into partnerships with communal and social organisations. It is the very same Chennithala who is now eager to let the Jamaat-e-Islami into the UDF fold."

Opposition Leader V D Satheesan's past utterances on the 'fifth minister' controversy was also laid on the table. The swearing in of Manjalamkuzhi Ali in 2011 as the fifth Muslim League minister in the Oommen Chandy cabinet had invited criticism from both within and outside the Congress.

"Satheesan had then said that the League leadership should introspect whether the fifth minister resulted in a political gain or loss. The League should only have been held out a hope, he said. Instead, he said that the issue was unnecessarily aggravated into a communal divide in Kerala. He also openly termed it an immature decision," the CM said.

Satheesan was also livid when the Chandy government decided to open 33 new schools in Malabar, Pinarayi said. "He said that schools should be sanctioned after taking into consideration the social situation. Satheesan said that the opening of the new schools would result in the consolidation of the majority community. It is the very same Satheesan who has now said that Jamaat-e-Islami has dropped its Islamic nation theory," the CM said.

The mention of minority schools in Malabar can also be interpreted as the CM's sly endorsement of Vellappally's anti-Muslim rant that the SNDP Yogam could not open schools in Malappuram.