Kerala Assembly Elections 2026: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan says Centre’s anti-minority FCRA (amendment) Bill exposes BJP’s ‘cake and flower diplomacy’ towards Church leaders in Kerala

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has termed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala a political shape-shifting entity whose “cake and flower diplomacy” towards Church leaders smacked of duplicity.

He told a news conference in Alappuzha on Monday (April 1, 2026) that some apparitions came knocking at Church doors in Kerala with cakes and flowers. “At the Centre, the same entities seek to bulldoze the patently anti-minority Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, which empowers the Centre to take over and administer minority charitable institutions for the slightest contravention of the existing law, through Parliament,” Mr. Vijayan said.

He noted that a Union Minister of State from Kerala, who was contesting the Assembly elections on the BJP ticket, had obsequiously defended the Sangh Parivar-inspired Bill that sought to strike at the root of Christian and Muslim charitable institutions, including hospitals and schools, which provided affordable medical care and education to common folk, cutting across caste and communal lines in the State.

Mr. Vijayan’s response came on a day when the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) MPs from Kerala separately protested against the Bill outside Parliament.

Postponed

Consequently, and reportedly chary of alienating Christians, a significant electoral bloc in Kerala, the Union government postponed tabling the Bill in Parliament at the last minute.

The BJP in Kerala had also reportedly raised red flags that the Bill would undermine the party’s outreach to Christians in Kerala.

Notably, BJP leaders, including Union Minister of State for Petroleum Suresh Gopi, attended Palm Sunday ceremonies in churches across Kerala to garner Christian votes in the Assembly elections.

Mr. Vijayan said the Bill was in line with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) core ideology. “The foundational texts of the RSS, including Vicharadhara by M.S. Golwalkar, view Christians, Muslims and communists as internal enemies and fifth columnists who deserved elimination. The Bill was an offshoot of the RSS’s revisionist Hindu majoritarian nationalism, which sought to relegate minorities, backward classes, Dalits and tribals to subaltern citizens with diminished rights. The BJP had introduced the draconian law citing national security concerns,” Mr. Vijayan said.

Mr. Vijayan said the Congress’ protests against the Sangh Parivar’s trespasses on Muslims and Christians had been at best muted.