Former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday publicly defended his Left Democratic Front (LDF) government’s record on combating drug trafficking, presenting police case data in direct response to allegations levelled by Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala that the previous administration had failed to curb the spread of narcotics in the state. The exchange marks a pointed escalation in the ongoing political confrontation between the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and the opposition LDF, with both sides now publicly contesting the legacy of the preceding government’s anti-narcotics efforts.
Speaking in his capacity as Leader of the Opposition in the Kerala Legislative Assembly, Vijayan cited police data indicating that Kerala Police registered 1,26,855 cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act between 2021 and 2025. Vijayan attributed the substantial rise in case registrations during the LDF’s tenure to what he described as strict monitoring and strong interventions, including a dedicated operation known as “Operation D-Hunt.” According to the figures he presented, these enforcement measures produced a 538 percent increase in NDPS case registrations across the five-year period under review.
Chennithala, who currently heads Kerala’s home portfolio under the UDF government that assumed office after the 2025 state elections, had accused the previous LDF administration of failing to check the spread of drugs in the state. The Home Minister’s office has previously flagged substance abuse among young people as a growing public safety concern requiring sustained government attention, framing the issue as one with direct consequences for Kerala’s youth and family welfare.
The political backdrop is significant. The LDF and the UDF have alternated in power in Kerala for several decades, and drug enforcement has periodically surfaced as a campaign issue in state-level contests. With the UDF now in government and the LDF in opposition, accountability for the previous administration’s anti-narcotics record has become a contested battleground. Vijayan, as Leader of the Opposition, is the senior LDF figure responsible for holding the ruling coalition accountable in the assembly, and his public rebuttal of Chennithala reflects the institutionalised nature of the rivalry between the two fronts.
Vijayan’s framing of the data emphasises volume of enforcement. He argued that the year-on-year rise in case registrations demonstrated that the LDF government had treated narcotics as a serious law-and-order priority and had empowered the police to act with greater intensity. The reference to “Operation D-Hunt,” a specialised anti-drug initiative launched during the LDF’s term, was intended to demonstrate institutional commitment beyond routine policing. Supporters of the previous government have consistently maintained that sustained enforcement, rather than permissive attitudes, characterised the LDF’s approach to narcotics control.
Chennithala’s position, by contrast, is that case numbers alone do not capture the full picture. The Home Minister has previously suggested that the visible spread of substances across districts, including in educational institutions and among adolescents, points to enforcement gaps during the LDF’s tenure, regardless of how many cases were registered. His office has argued that prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and community-level intervention must accompany arrests to constitute a credible anti-drug strategy.
Analysis:
The statistical figures presented by Vijayan frame increased arrests and case registrations as evidence of aggressive enforcement rather than rising drug prevalence. However, law enforcement experts caution that such metrics alone do not measure the effectiveness of anti-drug efforts. Higher case counts can reflect either intensified policing, deteriorating ground conditions, expanded legal definitions, or improved detection mechanisms. The political nature of the exchange underscores how drug enforcement has become a contested issue between Kerala’s two major coalition structures, with each side selectively deploying data to support its preferred narrative.
Neither side has yet provided independent verification of the figures cited in the public exchange, and the precise methodology behind the 538 percent increase calculation remains unclear from the available statements. It is not known whether the figure compares the first and last years of the cited period, averages across years, or normalises for population growth. Equally, the LDF has not released district-level breakdowns that would allow assessment of whether enforcement was concentrated in particular regions or distributed evenly across the state.
The credibility of both claims would be strengthened by the publication of detailed NDPS data from the Kerala Police annual reports, court conviction rates, quantities of narcotics seized, and trends in substance-specific seizures. Without such supporting evidence, the public debate risks being driven primarily by political messaging rather than verifiable outcomes.
Several developments are worth watching in the coming weeks. First, the Kerala Home Department may release its own consolidated data on drug-related cases, seizures, and convictions during the LDF’s tenure, which would provide an independent benchmark against which Vijayan’s claims can be assessed. Second, the state assembly is expected to feature follow-up exchanges, particularly if Chennithala or other UDF ministers table formal statements or respond to opposition notices on the narcotics issue. Third, civil society organisations working on addiction recovery and youth welfare in Kerala are likely to weigh in, particularly on questions of prevention and rehabilitation that have so far received limited attention in the political exchange. Finally, the broader question of whether the new UDF government will pursue its own specialised operations, modify existing protocols, or commission an independent review of past enforcement will indicate how seriously the administration treats the issue beyond partisan rebuttal.
The confrontation between Vijayan and Chennithala highlights a recurring feature of Kerala’s political landscape: the use of law-and-order statistics as instruments of partisan contest. For readers, the key takeaway is that the headline figure of a 538 percent increase in NDPS case registrations is a claim advanced by the Leader of the Opposition, supported by police data he cited, and contested in principle by the Home Minister, whose office has pointed to visible signs of substance abuse as evidence of past failure. Until independent verification and methodology are made public, the dispute is likely to remain unresolved at the level of evidence, even as both sides continue to press their respective positions in the assembly and in the public domain.
Sources: The Hindu (https://www.thehindu.com)
Source: The Hindu – National
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Story synopsis gathered from: The Hindu – National — source
