Analysis | CPM's Malappuram jinx: Why do leaders slip the moment they utter M-word

It is not the first time that remarks about Malappuram had put the CPM in trouble and forced its leaders to come up with bewildering excuses.

In 2024, in an interview he gave to The Hindu as Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan said there was a deliberate attempt to paint his government as anti-Muslim. As it turned out, like characters who end up speaking the opposite of what they intended, the proof Pinarayi offered for this conspiracy was widely understood as an insult of Malappuram.

"When our government acts against Muslim extremist elements, these forces try to project we are acting against Muslims," Pinarayi said in the interview. "For example, 150 kg of gold and hawala money worth ₹123 crore were seized by the state police in the last five years from Malappuram district. This money is entering Kerala for anti-state and anti-national activities," he said.

When it was realised that things had gone out of hand, the Chief Minister's Office said these were not the CM's words. The daily then put out a 'correction note' saying that the reference to Malappuram was inserted at the insistence of the PR agency that arranged the interview.

Then, there was the then culture minister Saji Cherian's careless remarks, made right after the huge gains made by the UDF in the 2025 local body polls. "The politics of the Muslim League spreads communalism, and one only needs to look at the names of those who won in Malappuram and Kasaragod to understand whether communal polarisation exists," he said.

Was it a Sangh Parivar leader talking, political opponents and even scholars wondered. When the backlash began, Cherian sounded wounded. He said his words were distorted and apologised to his "Muslim brothers" who had been unnecessarily hurt.

Natesan's curse
Interestingly, the CPM suffered the most not for the insensible comments of its leaders but for what was said about Malappuram by Vellapally Natesan, the general secretary of SNDP Yogam whose political wing BDJS was a BJP ally.

At an SNDP Yogam convention at Nilambur in Malappuram in April 2025, Natesan said that the Muslim community had hijacked all sectors in the district that Ezhavas in the district had no choice but to beg for MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) work. "Do we even have a nursery school for our children here in Malappuram," he had asked rhetorically.

The party itself has concluded that its timid response to Natesan's remarks had cost it dearly during the 2026 Assembly elections. "Though the state secretariat issued a statement condemning the anti-Muslim utterances of Vellappally Natesan, the state review self-critically notes that it was not a strong response. The statements made by some of our leaders about this controversy also contributed towards further alienation from the people," states the Review of Assembly Election Results adopted at the Central Committee meeting in July this year.

Sting in the nest
Now, when the party appears to be in rectification mode, former Ponnani MLA and one of CPM's tallest leaders in Malappuram, P Nandakumar, made a reference to the district that, at least to the party's political opponents, sounded like the CPM is in no mood to junk its political tactic of alienating the Muslim voter to lure the majority Hindus.

"Malappuram district is a nest of religious fundamentalists and sectarian forces," Nandakumar said while speaking at the delegate meeting of the Malappuram Extended Committee in Ponnani on October 3.

Widespread criticism forced CPM state secretary M V Govindan and Nandakumar himself to come out and clarify the next day. Interestingly, both gave fundamentally different explanations.

Govindan said Nandakumar was speaking of Muslim League and Jamaat-e-Islami. Nandakumar, on the other hand, said he was speaking of both Muslim and Hindu fundamentalism.

Govindan's Jamaat trap
Govindan seemed stuck in a strategy that has proved to be a resounding failure in the 2026 Assembly polls.

Jamaat-e-Islami, because it was the organisation that the CPM badmouthed the most during the election campaign, emerged as the party's idea of communalism. The Congress successfully managed to convince the electorate that Jamaat-e-Islami was a proxy for the Muslim community.

Despite the party's own conclusion that it had compromised in its fight against communalism, Govindan continued to heap all the badness on Jamaat-e-Islami. It was as if, for him, Hindu communalism did not exist.

"Influenced by Jamaat-e-Islami's extreme thinking, even the League, whose politics once had a secular core, has infused communal thinking in its cadres," Govindan said. Such political remarks originate from the same thinking that nudged another CPM veteran, A K Balan, to stretch the Jamaat-e-Islami political line to a silly maximum. Balan had said that the Jamaat-e-Islami would control the Home Department if the UDF came to power.

Nandakumar's 'equihate' policy
Nandakumar appeared to have moved on from this failed political tactic.

He said his intention was to warn of both Hindu and Muslim communalism. "What I intended to say was that we should not allow Malappuram district to be a nest of communal forces. Plans are afoot in this direction," Nandakumar said.

Both sides are making such attempts, he said. "The Muslim League is now gathering all Muslim organisations to its side to isolate the Left, and is also spreading all kinds of communal propaganda," Nandakumar said.

Simultaneously, he said the RSS agenda was also at work. Nandakumar said that this was evident in the conduct of Kumbh Mela at Thirunavaya in Malappuram early this year. "Now they are planning a 50-day Kumbh Mela, and this is being done to open up a political space for the BJP in Kerala," Nandakumar said. The one that concluded last February was spread over 17 days.

"We just want people to be aware of the dangerous directions in which these two forces are taking Kerala," he said.

Adapted screenplay?
The political resolution adopted at the Ponnani extended Committee meeting adheres close to Nandakumar's clarification. It is also said that the resolution, which came after the clarification, was so worded to impart some credibility to Nandakumar's explanation.

"The influence of communal forces played a part in the losses suffered by the LDF in the local body and Assembly elections. The Sangh Parivar propaganda and Muslim polarisation have contributed equally to this," the Resolution states.

Nandakumar, and the CPM political resolution, try to apportion the blame. On the other hand, the CPM state secretary, still trapped in a discarded tactical text, leaves the sin of communalism squarely at the feet of the League and Jamaat-e-Islami.