Shah Bano moment for Congress in Kerala

Congress will struggle to retain its core vote bank ahead of a make-or-break state election next year.

On April 2, as the Waqf (Amendment) 2025 Bill was put to vote in the Rajya Sabha close to midnight, jubilant villagers watching live proceedings on a giant screen at Kerala’s Munambam leapt to their feet in impromptu celebration. For the past six months, representatives of 610 families in the Munambam fishing hamlet—predominantly Latin Christians—had been sitting in protest at the precincts of Our Lady of Velankanni Church, following the loss of revenue rights to their small land holdings, with no remedy in sight.

No sooner had the Parliament given assent to the Bill than the Indian National Congress rushed to the Supreme Court to challenge it. Back in Kerala, however, India’s grand old party found itself in a soup, where its shrinking base is held together by Christians. For a party that had set in motion preparations to come back to power in 2026, after two terms in opposition, the political fallout may be hard to contain.

Undercurrents of Kerala politics

The results of the Legislative Assembly polls in 2021 broke a cycle of four decades that saw the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) alternating in power in Kerala. The LDF retained power in 2021.

The UDF’s loss was a result of Congress organisational weakness, as well as the onset of Covid-19, with people reposing trust in Pinarayi Vijayan’s leadership. There was, however, another critical factor at play: the growing chasm between the two minority communities that held the UDF together.

Even then, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)’s overtures to the Syro-Malabar Church didn’t convert to votes, and it was the CPI-M which fed off the propaganda that the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) was dominating the Congress in the UDF. The IUML’s ill-advised understanding with the Jamaat-e-Islami also played into the hands of the narrative, and a share of the Christian votes shifted to the LDF, courtesy the timely switching of the Church-backed Kerala Congress (M) over to it.

Left’s waning popularity since 2021

Traditionally, the UDF is backed by the minorities in Kerala, whereas the CPI-M is the bona fide ‘Hindu party’. Taking into account the BJP’s growth among the Hindu community, the Marxists worked overtime to appease Muslims in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with issues such as Hamas and the Citizenship Amendment Act dominating the poll narrative—only to come a cropper.

The Left under Pinarayi Vijayan had grown massively unpopular, regularly defaulting on disbursing welfare pensions, with corruption scandals to boot. Conversely, the Lok Sabha election result seemed to set the UDF house in order, with both Muslims and Christians voting in tandem for the Congress, resulting in the UDF securing 18 out of the 20 seats, even if it lost Thrissur to BJP’s Suresh Gopi.

Disquiet in Munambam

Nonetheless, Congress failed to anticipate the mounting anxiety among Christians on the Munambam issue. VD Satheesan, the Leader of Opposition, tried to calm frayed tempers by visiting the hamlet and declaring that it wasn’t Waqf property, but the Congress line was swiftly contradicted by IUML leaders in public—the strategy backfiring on the UDF.

Meanwhile, the state government appointed a judicial commission under retired justice CN Ramachandran Nair to figure out a solution. The Kerala Waqf Protection Forum challenged the commission’s legality, pleading that the Munambam issue was pending in the Waqf tribunal, leading to the High Court striking down the appointment.

The anxiety of Munambam residents peaked at this point, with Muslim organisations not willing to give an inch, claiming that the Waqf law is anchored in Islamic jurisprudence – despite the disputed nature of the claim in the first place. Whereas it was the Christian clergy with their BJP predilections who sought to influence the laity in the past, but to little avail, the sentiment on Munambam developed among Christians fairly organically.

The draconian section 108A in the Waqf Act, 1995 coupled with section 83, which bestows enormous power on the Waqf tribunal, set off fears that people could lose their homes, with Munambam embodying it.

Congress caught in a bind

As the Congress failed to address the growing concerns of Christians, the narrative of ‘IUML setting UDF agenda’ became a plausible theory. Meanwhile, the Kerala Catholic Bishops Conference (KCBC) came up with an exhortation to Kerala MPs to support the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, leaving the Congress in a bind. The party’s national leadership was left to choose between the support of Muslims across the country, or Christians in Kerala.

Regardless, the Congress could have adopted a more nuanced position. For instance, Jose K Mani, of the Kerala Congress (M), offered partial support, backing clauses in the new Bill that replaced the draconian provisions in the repealed Act, even if he voted against it. The Congress parliamentarians from Kerala failed to come up with a similar strategy, simply following the party whip.

BJP’s gain is Congress loss

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the newly-minted state BJP president, was quick to take credit for the passage of the Bill. At least 50 residents of Munambam took membership of the saffron party, when he visited the hamlet on April 5. The die is cast, and Congress will struggle to retain its core vote bank ahead of a make-or-break election next year, which will be preceded by the local body polls later this year.

If it was only the Syrian Christians on the BJP’s radar in the past, the Munambam issue ensured that the Latin Christians too are a potential support base. It is unlikely that a sizeable number of Christians would switch from the Congress to the BJP overnight, and such a situation could again be to the Left’s advantage.

In any case, this is the Shah Bano moment for the Congress in Kerala.