Kerala Assembly Elections 2026: Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Welfare Party of India at the centre of political storms

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH), though representing only a small fraction of Kerala’s nine-million-strong Muslim population, has long commanded disproportionate attention for political and communal reasons. For over a decade, the JIH and its political wing the Welfare Party of India (WPI) have been at the centre of political storms, particularly during the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)]-led Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) rule since 2016.

The JIH and the WPI were used by both the CPI(M) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to shape social and communal narratives.

For the BJP, the Jamaat has always been an ideological adversary. For the CPI(M), the friction began apparently after Jamaat’s support shifted towards the Congress in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Until then, the Jamaat had openly backed the Left.

According to JIH Kerala Amir P. Mujeeb Rahman, Jamaat supported the LDF in the 1996, 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha elections, as well as in the 2006 and 2011 Assembly polls. The justification, he said, was a perceived dilution of the Congress’s capacity to resist the BJP and right-wing fundamentalism.

In the 2016 Assembly elections, the Jamaat contested around 40 constituencies under the WPI banner, for the first time revealing the limits of its political clout. WPI candidates averaged just 1.06% of the vote, with the strongest showing by WPI State president Hameed Vaniyambalam in Mankada at 2.7%. Elsewhere, the WPI lent support to both the LDF and the UDF candidates. Congress leader K. Muraleedharan, who won from Vattiyurkavu in 2016, has acknowledged receiving Jamaat support in that year.

The LDF-Jamaat engagement effectively ended in 2019 when the WPI’s support tilted towards the Congress. Despite lending selective support to candidates across both the fronts over the years, the Jamaat never formally allied with any party or front.

Several CPI(M) leaders, including former party State secretary and current Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, had historically engaged with the Jamaat. Mr. Mujeeb Rahman recalls Mr. Vijayan meeting the former Kerala Amir T. Arif Ali at the Alappuzha guest house ahead of the 2011 Assembly election. Mr. Arif Ali had publicly declared the Jamaat’s support for CPI(M) leader George M. Thomas in the 2006 byelection in Thiruvambady.

Since 2019, with the Jamaat and the WPI backing the UDF, the CPI(M) began branding them as communal and extremist, portraying the UDF as courting communal alliances.

“The CPI(M) has a moral obligation to clarify if the Jamaat-e-Islami became a terrorist organisation after 2024,” said Mr. Mujeeb Rahman.

Charges of extremism peaked during the 2025 local body elections when the WPI allied with the UDF. While some CPI(M) leaders have softened their rhetoric, Polit Bureau member A. Vijayaraghavan maintained that the UDF was “a conglomerate of communal elements” with no secular face, noting that some UDF candidates were Jamaat nominees. He cited K.M. Shaji in Vengara as a “Jamaat sloganeer.”

Ahead of the April 9 polls, the WPI pledged support to most UDF candidates to prevent another Left government in Kerala. WPI State president Razak Paleri argues that although the Left is secular, its continued rule serves the Sangh Parivar’s strategy that maintaining Left power creates a social climate favourable to the Sangh Parivar in Kerala.

“Kerala should remain Kerala and leave no space for the Sangh Parivar,” he said justifying the WPI’s support to the UDF.