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 described the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala as a political shape-shifting entity whose “cake and flowers diplomacy” against Church leaders smacks of hypocrisy.

Some ghosts were knocking on Church doors in Kerala with cakes and flowers, he said at a press conference in Alappuzha on Monday, April 1, 2026. “At the Centre, the same organizations are trying to destroy the blatantly anti-minority Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, which empowers the Center to take over and manage minority charities through Parliament in case of even the slightest violation of existing law,” Mr. Vijayan said.

He noted that a Union Minister of State from Kerala, who is contesting the Assembly elections on a BJP ticket, has sycophantically advocated the Sangh Parivar-inspired bill aimed at rooting out Christian and Muslim charities, including hospitals and schools, which provide affordable medical care and education to the common people across caste and communal boundaries in the state.

Mr. Vijayan’s response came on a day when United Democratic Front (UDF) and Left Democratic Front (LDF) MPs in Kerala were separately protesting against the bill outside Parliament.

Postponed

As a result, and reportedly wary of alienating Christians, a key electoral bloc in Kerala, the Union government postponed the introduction of the bill in Parliament at the last minute.

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

Notably, BJP leaders, including 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 that the Bill is in line with the core ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). “The basic texts of RSS are vicharadhara MS Golwalkar sees Christians, Muslims and communists as internal enemies and fifth column writers who deserve to be destroyed. The bill was an extension of the RSS’s revisionist Hindu majoritarian nationalism, which sought to cede minorities, backward classes, Dalits and tribals to subaltern citizens with diminished rights. The BJP had introduced this draconian law citing national security concerns,” Mr. Vijayan said.