The ruling Left Front may have lost 19 of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala for the second consecutive time but chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan is unfazed.

Ignoring criticism that his style of functioning was solely responsible for the drubbing, Vijayan, who had tried to woo Muslims throughout the campaign, has now directed his ire at the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).

The general feeling in the state is that Vijayan’s “outreach” to the Muslims, with the 2026 Assembly elections in mind, had alienated other communities, especially the Hindus, from the CPM.

Statistics, however, show that Muslims had ignored Vijayan’s pitch that the CPM alone would be able to protect the community’s interests, especially in the light of the Citizenship Amendment Act, and voted for the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) en masse.

Though the IUML is the backbone of the UDF, Muslims by and large had voted for the LDF in the 2021 Assembly elections that saw Vijayan coast to power for a record second time.

Addressing an event in Muslim-dominated Kozhikode, Vijayan said the IUML had suffered a loss of face since it had aligned with Jamat-e-Islami and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) — the political wing of the banned Popular Front of India — for electoral gains.

Elamaram Karim, the only senior Muslim leader in the CPM, was fielded from Kozhikode where he lost to his Congress rival by more than 1.15 lakh votes.

The IUML was quick to react. In an editorial titled “Will appearance be better by breaking the mirror?”, the party mouthpiece Chandrika accused the CPM of relaunching its “crooked strategy of cutting and dividing the wards in favour of the party”.

It added: “The ‘Modi wearing mundu’ is doing the copy-paste of the real Modi’s tactics.”

With the state CPM taking stock of its defeat and the party’s general secretary Sitaram Yechury hinting at a change of leadership, many believe that Vijayan is trying to ward off future attacks by raking up communal divide as the reason for the party’s dismal performance.

According to final poll tally, a major share of the Ezhava vote — the traditional CPM supporters — has gone in favour of the BJP.

With the BJP overtaking the CPM in 11 Assembly segments and coming just behind in another 10, it is almost certain that the saffron party will be a force to reckon with in the next Assembly elections.

Vijayan and the CPM maintain that the voters of the state were “misled” by the Congress and the BJP, and that the party’s soon-to-be-launched “awareness campaign” would bring them back on the right track.

However, many say the problem lies with Vijayan and not the electorate.

“As is the case with Narendra Modi in the BJP, there is no one in the state CPM or in its central leadership to say openly that the emperor has no clothes,” said K.C. Umesh Babu, activist and one-time CPM member.

Rift in party?

In Kannur, CPM strongman P. Jayarajan is facing heat over allegations that he is trying to build his own group within the party.

Last month, Jayarajan had suggested that Kerala wanted to see former health minister K.K. Shailaja as their future chief minister.

Manu Thomas, former leader of the CPM’s youth front DYFI, has alleged that Jayarajan has been plotting to form a rival group against Vijayan and state secretary M.V. Govindan, both hailing from Kannur.

Though the state leadership has not reacted to the allegations, Jayarajan and his son Jain Raj have engaged in a war of words with Thomas on social media.

Jayarajan, a one-time close ally of Vijayan, has drifted apart ever since he was accused of encouraging a personality cult among party workers in the district following which he was forced to disband the group known as PJ Army.

In 2019, Jayarajan was removed from the Kannur leadership and contested the Lok Sabha elections that year without success from Vadakara. Shailaja, a sitting MLA, contested from Vadakara unsuccessfully this year.