At the four-day CPM State Conference that gets going in Kollam on March 6, the leadership of the Kerala unit of the party will have to convince delegates of two apparent deviations.

One, why has the Kerala unit quickly engineered a foundational shift in the CPM beliefs, at times even going against principles the party still holds dear. And two, why has the national leadership stopped short of calling the BJP fascist or even neo-fascist. Both developments have created ideological confusion in the Kerala CPM's ranks just before two crucial elections: the local body polls late this year and the Assembly polls in the middle of 2026.

Moneybags in higher education
On March 3, just three days before the start of the State Conference, the LDF government tabled the Kerala State Private Universities Bill, 2025, which will usher in private players to the higher education sector in Kerala. 

Barely a decade ago, just before the first Pinarayi Vijayan Ministry assumed power, the idea of private investment in higher education was for the CPM as outrageous as a personal insult that even a student leader considered it fitting to slap the former chairman of the State Higher Education Council and the highly regarded former ambassador, T P Sreenivasan, for patronising private universities. 

Pinarayi himself made amends, when his 'Nava Kerala Vision' document at the last State Conference in 2022 spoke of the necessity of "globally competitive higher education and research institutions in the private sector". A formal announcement that private universities will be established was made a year later on February 5, 2024, in the 2024-25 Kerala Budget speech. And on March 3, the Private Universities Bill was tabled. 

Unease of doing business & collecting tolls
A fortnight ago, the government organised what looked like a 'clearance sale' of Kerala, relaxing controls to improve its 'ease of doing business' index, a concept the CPM finds hugely disturbing, and then wooing private capital at the Invest Kerala Summit 2025. Of the Rs 1.53 lakh crore promised, 20% or Rs 30,000 crore came from one source: the Adani Group, the very same company in which, according to the latest Political Resolution of the CPM, wealth of the country is getting concentrated. 

Here is what the Draft Political Resolution, which was adopted at the Central Committee Meeting held in Kolkata in January this year, says about 'ease of doing business', even if the barrel of the gun is pointed solely at the BJP: "The BJP’s pursuit of the ‘ease of doing business’ has meant the dismantling of environmental regulations, permitting projects in hitherto protected areas and weakening regulatory agencies and mechanisms." 

The bullet could have hit Pinarayi, too, bang in the middle of his forehead. There is deep suspicion, even within the CPM, that certain excise rules were amended very recently to quickly clear the way for a brewery at water-scare Elappully panchayat in Palakkad. 

In the second week of February this year, the Chief Minister made it clear that for KIIFB to survive "user fee" was inevitable. The CPM, particularly in Kerala, has always made a big performance of being repelled by levies like "user fee" and "tolls", spitefully calling them neoliberal dung.

New road to prosperity
A defense of all these policies is expected to be included in Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's document 'Pathways to Nava Kerala', which will be presented and then put up for discussion at the state conference. 

Pinarayi is expected to emphasise the social guarantees that would be in place for every policy decision that seems like a divergence from the Marxian essence; like reservations in the case of private universities or zero groundwater exploitation in the case of breweries or low and affordable KIIFB 'user fee' and exemption for locals, two-wheelers and autorickshaws. 

The document is said to be an updated version of the 'Nava Kerala Vision' document he had presented at the last state conference. The first 'Nava Kerala Vision' document had called for a shift from the famed welfare-centric Kerala model to a socio-liberal model that valued industrial growth and entrepreneurial spirit as much as welfare. 

​Modi not even a neo-fascist
However, it is the 'BJP not yet neo-fascist' formulation of the national leadership that has perplexed the Kerala leadership. This can be seen as confirmation of the Congress narrative in Kerala that the CPM is going soft on the BJP.

The Draft Political Resolution was as clear on the issue as someone who is either fearful of being candid or shrewd enough to mask the real intention. "The push to impose a reactionary Hindutva agenda and the authoritarian drive to suppress the opposition and democracy displays neo-fascist characteristics," it says. So is the resolution trying to say that the BJP is neo-fascist or not? 

The widespread bewilderment this sentence caused prompted the central leadership to issue a clarification. After dancing around the real issue, the clarification finally says: "We have not said that the Modi government is fascistic or neo-fascistic." Clarity established. Opponents can easily spin this as a weakness. 

If it cannot quarrel with the central leadership's hazy political phraseology, what can the Kerala unit do to reassert its political might? Trivialise the opponent and emerge as strong in comparison. It looks like Pinarayi's strategy is to aggressively position the CPM as the only anti-BJP force in Kerala. The messaging has already begun.

In a piece on the eve of the State Conference, Pinarayi said: "It was the Congress strategy of scattering secular votes that led to BJP's victory in Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra even though it had to face the wrath of the farmers. The Congress prevented the unification of secular votes by claiming to have more strength that it really had. This way, the Congress subverted the popular mandate that was against the BJP."

It is important for the CPM to be seen as the secular alternative, a political mission that has been at least for the moment undermined by the 'BJP not fascist or neo-fascist' conclusion of the CPM central leadership. Therefore, the primary political agenda of the CPM State Conference would be to tear into the Congress's secular credentials.