As Kerala voted for the 18th Lok Sabha on Friday, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had his eyes set on the 2026 Assembly elections, hoping to romp home for a record third consecutive term in office.

While the Congress slammed Narendra Modi and "Mundudutha Modi" (Pinarayi) for their authoritarian regimes, the chief minister was relentless in his attack on the Congress for failing to make its stand clear on the Citizenship Amendment Act in its manifesto.

Pinarayi was addressing the large Muslim community, stoking its anxieties about the Act and trying to drive home the message that it was futile for the community to believe in the Congress. "We will stop CAA, the Congress won’t," Pinarayi told the Muslims.

Pinarayi and his party had earlier targeted Rahul Gandhi, first for his decision to contest again from Wayanad and then for his "silence" on the CAA.

This had prompted Rahul to say: "When the BJP is destroying the Constitution, destroying the institutions and dividing India, why is the chief minister of Kerala attacking me 24x7?"

The immediate reason for Pinarayi’s attack on Rahul was the Congress leader’s comment that "when other chief ministers are put behind bars, why is Modi not arresting the chief minister of Kerala?"

In Kerala, the Congress has for months been alleging a "secret understanding" between Modi and Pinarayi, under which the Prime Minister has apparently promised not to pursue the corruption charges against the chief minister and his daughter.

Despite Modi raking up the gold smuggling case and pointing fingers at the chief minister’s office at public meetings in Kerala, the CBI and the ED have been cooling their heels after initiating investigations three years ago.

Pinarayi has emphatically asserted that his government would not allow the CAA to be implemented in Kerala — an impractical stand since the states have nothing to do with the Act's implementation. Besides, detention centres have already come up in at least two districts in the state, although Kerala will be the least affected by the law.

But strangely, Pinarayi's anger has been directed not at those trying to enforce the draconian law but at the Congress. "Why is the Congress silent on the CAA?" he has asked in rally after rally in the Muslim-dominated Malabar districts.

"Here is a CM who did not think twice before arresting two youngsters under the UAPA and is now talking about the CAA. The Muslim youth will see through this," said Fazal Gafoor, president of the Muslim Educational Society, a charitable organisation.

In November 2019, Pinarayi's police had arrested two students, Thaha Fazal and Allan Shuhaib, from Kozhikode under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for possessing Maoist literature and books and handed the case over to the NIA without batting an eyelid. Mercifully, the courts intervened and released them after 10 months.

Right through the campaign, Pinarayi has trained his guns at the Congress and not the BJP or Modi although Left Democratic Front convener E.P. Jayarajan had initially said the fight in Kerala was between the LDF and the BJP.

Jayarajan was told to shut his mouth as Pinarayi unleashed a Congress-mukt-Kerala campaign. “Our fight is against the Congress,” he asserted before turning his focus on the CAA.

The way Pinarayi has gone on about the CAA, many have wondered whether he was campaigning with an eye on the 2026 Assembly elections. “It’s far too clear,” said poet and social activist Kalpatta Narayanan, “that he wants the Muslim League in the LDF by 2026 even at the cost of the CPI.”

The CPI, the other communist party in the LDF, is contesting three Lok Sabha seats: Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur and Wayanad. It has a slender chance only in Thrissur, the cultural capital of Kerala.

With the CPI support base fast eroding in the state — the party has lost its national status — the CPM, rather Pinarayi, whose word is final in the Kerala party, has been trying to enlist other allies.

The CPM had succeeded in bringing a prominent faction of the pro-Church Kerala Congress (Mani) into the LDF before the state elections of 2021 and reaped the benefits in the predominantly Christian-inhabited central Kerala.

Although Kannur in north Kerala continues to be a CPM bastion, the party has not succeeded in making inroads into the neighbouring districts of Malabar where the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the backbone of the Congress-led UDF, holds sway.

Before the Lok Sabha elections, there was speculation about the IUML switching sides. However, it did not work out. But Pinarayi has managed to entice a section of the Samastha, a religious-educational society run by Sunni clerics, to the LDF.

Pinarayi had in the past wooed certain prominent Muslim League youth leaders by getting them elected to the Assembly with CPM support. A couple of them are known confidants of Pinarayi. One of them had demanded that Rahul undergo a DNA test to prove he was a Nehru-Gandhi.

“Pinarayi has close links with the Muslim merchant class, which is helping him stash away his ill-gotten wealth in Dubai and elsewhere. They are influencing the Muslim League to join the LDF,” said Umesh Babu, political commentator and one-time CPM card holder.

The political scene is bound to undergo some changes after the general election. Even if the UDF repeats its 2019 performance, when it won 19 of the 20 seats — an unlikely proposition this time — there is no denying that the Congress has weakened as an organisation in the state.

Kerala voted today