It was a momentary strategic confusion, triggered by Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala's surprise move, that had caused Kozhikode district secretary P Mohanan to speak like he was suddenly concerned for jailed Alan Shuhaib and Thaha Fazal, the two CPM youths who had been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

The party has quickly steeled itself, pulled Mohanan back, and in double quick time has pushed its stern unforgiving face to the front. CPM central committee member and one of Pinarayi Vijayan's closest comrades, M V Govindan, said the party was in no two minds about the deeds of Alan and Thaha and asserted that they had Maoist links. Soon enough, as if in confirmation, P Jayarajan who had been in a state of rebellion with the party for some time, too, said the boys had links to extremist-Maoist elements.

A day earlier, on January 23, P Mohanan had hinted that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan could have been mistaken about the Maoist links of Alan and Thaha. "The Chief Minister's opinion is based on police reports," Mohanan said. He also said it would be premature to link them to Maoists before hearing their version.

Since it was Mohanan who had first charged extreme Muslim outfits in Malabar with nourishing Maoism, he going soft on Alan and Thaha was initially seen as a tactical change of approach by the party. Two factors, it was argued, prompted Mohanan to strike a note that went contrary to the stated position of the party and the Chief Minister.

Irony is, Mohanan was being too protective of the Chief Minister. Sources say he mainly wanted to preserve and sustain Pinarayi Vijayan's glossy new image as the leader who would do all that it takes to protect the interests of the minorities. But scratching violently at this gloss was the reality that two Muslim youths had been jailed using a law the CPM called draconian, and were now at the mercy of Amit Shah's National Investigation Agency (NIA).

At about the same time that Mohanan was having doubts about his party's approach to Alan and Thaha, Ramesh Chennithala had also grown desperate to to somehow break the spell Pinarayi was having on the Muslim community.

The opposition leader then, in an attempt to broadcast how dismissive the Chief Minister was about the plight of two Muslim boys, made a high-profile visit to the houses of Alan and Thaha in Kozhikode. Chennithala even promised to fight for the CPM boys in court.

Jolted, Mohanan reworked his attitude. "If at all they had made some mistakes, we will correct them. They are still CPM members and the party has not taken any action against them. The party has not gone back from its commitment to protect them," Mohanan said.

Within the party, this softening was seen as a weakness, an admission of guilt. Even after the Lok Sabha drubbing, the party had never publicly acknowledged its strategic mistakes in Sabarimala. "In party classes we tell our comrades to be like Lenin. Even when his statues were pulled down in Russia, his head was still held high," a CPM state committee member said on condition of anonymity. It was hard to tell whether he was serious or joking.

Before M V Govindan came out to reassert the party's stern stance, Mohanan was made to swallow his words. As is usual in such cases, media was the scapegoated. Mohanan said his words were distorted and that he had never contradicted the Chief Minister. After Mohanan was deflated, Govindan arrived on the scene and said the party had no doubts about Alan and Thaha's Maoist links. "How deep their connections were, the party will probe," he said.

Though he has differences with the Pinarayi faction on many issues, Kannur strongman P Jayarajan too came out in stout defence of the party's stand on Alan and Thaha. "We need to continue our attempts to expose Islamists and Maoists. On this, there is unity in the CPM," Jayarajan said on Friday.

Jayarajan reiterated what he had said earlier. "Even before I had said that they (Alan and Thaha) had secretly worked for another organisation while being party members. And I am not saying this on the basis of any police report. My charge that the Maoist who escaped from the police, and is still on the run, had stayed a night in Alan's room was based on information passed on by his fellow students," he said.

Further, Jayarajan said it were the SFI activists who had prevented Alan and Thaha from forming a wing called Students Cultural Centre in cooperation with Jamaat-e-Islami's students wing on the Palayadu University campus.

The CPM strategy is now clear: it wants to be seen as against Islamists and not Muslims. They want Alan and Thaha identified as Islamists with links to orthodox Muslim outfits like Jamaat-e-Islami, which the CPM says are against secular nationalism.

While it has strictly kept away from protests organised by outfits like Jamaat-e-Islaami, the CPM is now working hard to rope in as many moderate Muslim groups, including the Muslim League, to take part in the north-south 'human chain' it would be forging in Kerala on January 26 against the Citizenship Amendment Act.