A K Antony’s call to Congress to not lose sight of majority vote another sign of Kerala churn

While noting that Antony has spoken of this before, senior Congress leader and UDF convener M M Hassan attacked the CPI(M), saying it painted every pro-Hindu gesture as anti-minority and was trying to pocket minority votes by depicting the Congress as a “soft-Hindutva” party. “It is wrong to depict all those who wear tilak on their forehead or all those who do the Sabarimala pilgrimage as BJP followers,” he said.

Senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP K Muraleedharan also attacked the CPI(M) for drawing such hard lines. “The Congress is the party which gives space to the faithful. It is the CPI(M) that consigns Hindu religion to the BJP,’’ he said.

While itself a Hindu-dominated party, the CPI(M) has zeroed in on the wariness regarding the BJP among the substantial minority vote in Kerala, comprising both Muslims and Christians, as a way to expand its footprint among them. Accusing the Congress of playing the soft Hindutva card, and even being “the B-team of the BJP”, the CPI(M) argues that only the Left can champion secularism in the state.

One such incident that the CPI(M) had pounced upon was Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s statement at a Jaipur rally in December 2021 that “I am a Hindu but not a Hindutvawadi”.

The BJP’s anti-Congress attack has been focused on the latter’s long-standing alliance with the IUML. The party says the Congress allowed “minority-based parties” to wield clout beyond their weight in the United Democratic Front government led by it in Kerala.

BJP state president K Surendran said Antony seemed to be trying to course correct ahead of the 2024 general elections. “Antony’s love for the majority vote bank is bogus. He as well as his party are known for appeasing minorities,’’ he said.

When it comes to majority support, Antony has had a chequered past. At a time when K Karunakaran and he vied for the leadership of the Congress in Kerala, Antony found himself the target of a whisper campaign about “pampering the interests of minorities”. After 1995, when Karunakaran was overthrown as CM in the wake of the ISRO spy scandal, Antony was accused of “ganging up” with minority-dominated IUML and Kerala Congress (M) to unseat Karunakaran. In 1995, in fact, Antony won a by-election from IUML seat Thirurangandi.

Since then, while no Hindu leader from the Congress has ever become the CM of Kerala, Antony has himself been courting a pro-Hindu image. He took care of this especially when he headed a coalition government in Kerala from 2001 to 2004, with the IUML and Kerala Congress (M) as partners.

For example, after the 2003 incident at Marad in Kozhikode, when eight Hindu fishermen were killed in an attack by some Muslim accused. After the IUML announced a deadline for rehabilitation of Muslims who fled the Marad coast fearing retaliation, Antony had responded with an unusually harsh statement, saying: “Minorities in Kerala are powerfully organised. They have secured more privileges and benefits from the government through collective bargaining. Unlike the rest of India, minority communities here dominate the state’s political and administrative echelons. It cannot be allowed.”

Personal gains for Antony apart, the stand was seen to have backfired against the Congress. The 2004 Lok Sabha elections had seen the Congress-led UDF lose in 18 of the 20 seats in the state. The two seats the UDF won both belonged to its allies.

Antony has since stuck to this line of critiquing minority “appeasement”.

The IUML has been silent on Antony’s most recent statement. Itself in a crisis given the UDF’s second successive Assembly poll loss, the party sees its best chance in keeping the Hindus in good humour to be on the winning side.