In 2023, Mohamed Riyas engaged in a war of words with the Leader of Opposition in the Kerala Assembly V.D. Satheesan, who said that Riyas had become a minister by sheer luck. Riyas hit out at the Congress leader, calling him “self-righteous” for engaging in personal attacks rather than taking the Left on politically.
However, sources in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the state government said that they have not noticed any special bonhomie between Mohamed Riyas and Pinarayi Vijayan during the day-to-day party or state affairs.
According to the sources, Mohamed Riyas, a supporter of the Left since his teenage years, rose through the ranks of the party’s student wings from Kozhikode. He was with the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) before becoming the state secretariat member and national president of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI). Both are youth wings of the CPIM.
Currently, in the fourth year of his ministership, Mohamed Riyas attracts the spotlight more than any other minister in the Kerala government. His focus on public relations and his large social media presence also set him apart from most ministers in Kerala.
A close aide of Riyas explained the Riyas-Vijayan relationship, saying, “I have not even seen them talking to each other so much. If Riyas initiates it [a casual conversation], the CM will not entertain it.”
Now close to Riyas for nearly 20 years, the source told ThePrint his view that Riyas did not enjoy working in the ‘system’—he has seen Riyas trying to get rid of his security.
Speaking to ThePrint on behalf of the party, Varkala MLA V. Joy, who also acts as the CPIM secretary in the Thiruvananthapuram district unit, said that Riyas was also handling his department well.
“Compared to many others, he checks all the social media comments on his work and department. He works on whatever is flagged too,” Joy said, adding that the decision to appoint him minister, in the first place, was a unanimous one. A long SFI and DYFI experience, Joy said, led to his ministership in the second Pinarayi cabinet.
“Riyas was not included in the cabinet for being the CM’s son-in-law. He worked in the SFI and became the national president of the DYFI. Persons such as Chandrasekhar do not know all that,” Joy added.
Also in political activism since college and rising through the ranks of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), leader Sayyid Munavvar Ali Shihab Thangal, a friend of Riyas at the Farook College in Kozhikode, was one of the first people who publicly congratulated his contemporary after he became a minister.
“Riyas understands Left politics deeply and has shown political maturity since he was a student. A good organiser and talented leader, he has now earned his rightful place,” Thangal wrote on Facebook.
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Entry into politics
Son of retired IPS officer Abdul Khader, Mohamed Riyas from Kozhikode district, entered Left politics at a young age. Doing his B.Com from Farook College, dominated by the IUML student wing, the Muslim Students Federation (MSF), Mohamed Riyas first became the students’ Union councillor by representing the SFI.
The young SFI leader then attended the Government Law College, Kozhikode, rising through the ranks and holding key positions in the SFI and later in the DYFI at the district and state levels simultaneously.
After becoming the DYFI national president in 2017, Riyas started working in Delhi. At that time, in Delhi and even in Kerala, he led several agitations, especially against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019, and the ban on cow slaughter—both introduced by the BJP-led central government.
His first attempt at electoral politics was in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from the Kozhikode constituency, which he lost to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) candidate M.K. Raghavan by a narrow margin of 838 votes only. Between 2009 and 2021, Mohamed Riyas did not contest any elections but remained active in grassroots political work in Kozhikode.
In 2021, in the Kerala assembly elections, CPIM fielded him as its candidate from the Beypore constituency, and he won with a margin of 28,747 votes against the Congress candidate, advocate P.M. Niyas.
The 2021 Kerala assembly election, held amid the pandemic, marked a historic victory for the CPIM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF), which secured a second consecutive term by winning 99 of 140 seats.
Given a second mandate, the LDF, led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, did not include outgoing ministers in the new cabinet. The party leadership stated it was a conscious decision to bring in new faces and younger leaders. At the swearing-in of the second Pinarayi Vijayan ministry in May 2021, the state government inducted eight first-time legislators, including Mohamed Riyas.
“The party had a political stand to induct new young faces into the cabinet. He [Riyas] fit the requirement,” an SFI leader told ThePrint on the condition of anonymity.
His induction into the cabinet assumed significance since it came a year after his marriage to Veena Vijayan, the daughter of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The couple married in 2020 under the Special Marriage Act 1954 at a private ceremony at the chief minister’s official residence, Cliff House in Thiruvananthapuram.
On a different note, his first wife, Dr Shemmeha Sathalavi, had charged Riyas with mental and physical abuse during their 2015 divorce.
“When he married the chief minister’s daughter, Riyas was already the all-India DYFI president, well-established and respected within the party,” the SFI leader said.
The leader added that Riyas remained ‘down to earth’ after becoming minister and maintained a close relationship with the SFI.
“Unlike many traditional Communist leaders, known for their academic and ideological rhetoric, Riyas has a conversational, colloquial style, which has made him stand out within the Left leadership,” he said.
Performance as minister
Months after becoming the tourism and PWD minister in the second Pinarayi Vijayan government in 2021, a key event marked P.A. Mohamed Riyas in Malayalee memory—his surprise visits to various government offices under his purview.
From PWD to the rest houses under the Kerala Road Fund Board (KRFB), Riyas arrived at many offices unannounced and rebuked the staff for their absence or dereliction of duties. The videos of Riyas picking empty liquor bottles from the PWD resthouse premises caught not only eyeballs but also social media attention.
Though the minister was targeted for using PR and social media extensively, his staff says he never got affected and improved transparency in departmental actions.
“Initially, the minister was at the receiving end of trolling for his undeclared visits, but now the resthouses are well-maintained,” a staff at his office told ThePrint.
The staff said that the department began renovating the resthouses and converting them to tourist homes in 2021, generating an extra Rs 22 crore of revenue for the state. He said 3.5 lakh bookings are recorded for the resthouse this year.
The staff said one of the major initiatives under Riyas in the tourism department was the introduction of the ‘bio-bubble’ for safe tourism during the pandemic. It began in September 2021, a month after Kerala reopened its tourism sector. The model promised that tourists would interact only with vaccinated personnel, including airport ground staff and hotel employees.
“It showed that Kerala was recovering from the pandemic,” the staff said.
The department, meanwhile, launched a massive campaign in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu after choosing Wayanad as the first ‘bio-bubble’ destination. Riyas proposed Wayanad for a marketing initiative in tech city Bengaluru via posters near bus stands and roads.
Wayanad is nearly 6 hours away from Bangalore.
“It has since become a popular weekend getaway for people from Bengaluru,” the staff said.
To cater to solo travellers and small groups, particularly in ecologically sensitive high-altitude areas, where infrastructure development faces restrictions, the department, the staff said, launched caravan tourism.
To diversify Kerala’s appeal, the department was the first to make the push to turn the state into a wedding destination. It partnered with American YouTuber and singer Vidya Vox to produce a video, Wedding in Kerala, which quickly went viral.
“We are moving toward unconventional marketing strategies, offering maximum visibility, with minimal spending,” the staff told ThePrint.
It includes Hindi-language advertisements in airports across Rajasthan and thematically designed promotions seen in buses.
“If travelling from Rajasthan, our advertisement says that tourists can experience an opposite climate and geography,” the staff said, explaining why Rajasthan is also a good market.
The department has also asked local self-governments to identify hangout spots at the panchayat level to overcome the crowding of the state’s major tourist spots. It has also pledged to cover 60% of the redevelopment costs to the local body.
“We aim to develop at least one tourist destination in every panchayat,” the staff said.
Talking about the number of tourists, he confirmed 12 lakh arrivals in 2017–18 and zero during the pandemic. However, the number had again reached 7.7 lakh by 2024, showing a post-COVID-19 recovery.
Following the deaths of 22 people in the 2023 accident of a recreational boat in Malappuram, Mohamed Riyas came under criticism for negligence. On 7 May, the ‘Atlantic‘ boat, with 37 people onboard, capsized on Tanur beach, Malappuram.
A local fisherman alleged that before the accident, he complained about the modified fishing boat, carrying more people than its capacity, to the minister, who was in Tanur for an event, but Riyas ignored him.
On other reforms, the staff said, Mohamed Riyas had sought to overhaul the image of the PWD, long plagued by perceptions of corruption. One of the key transparency measures introduced was making the Defects Liability Period (DLP) mandatory for all public works. As a result, the contractor details, including contact information and a PWD toll-free number, are now publicly available.
“The roads in the state have improved significantly,” added the staff.
Even for main infrastructure projects, such as the widening of National Highway 66, the construction of coastal roads, and the hill highway project, Mohamed Riyas ensured weekly review meetings with all stakeholders to ensure accountability and transparency.
Speaking to ThePrint, leaders of the opposition party, UDF, said the failure of the PWD to develop roads in the state was the biggest failure of the minister.
“Many roads in the state are still in bad condition. But if you look at his social media handouts or PR, the minister has created a perception that the state roads are wide. But on the ground, it is different, and only a few roads have been developed,” Najeeb Kanthapuram, IUML MLA from Perinthalmanna, told ThePrint.
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Controversies around Riyas
After assuming his office, Mohamed Riyas has landed various other controversies. In October 2021, Riyas stated in the Kerala assembly that MLAs should not visit his office with contractors interested in taking up projects. The minister said it could lead to issues later.
There were reportedly rumbles within the CPIM, with many MLAs, including Kerala Assembly Speaker A.N. Shamseer, noting at a CPIM legislature party meeting that Riyas could create a negative impression about legislators in the state. However, the CM backed Mohamed Riyas, saying no conflicting views existed in the party.
In August 2023, Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan alleged that Mohamed Riyas concealed crucial information in his 2021 election affidavit after the Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL) pay-off case surfaced. The allegations against Riyas were that his wife’s IT firm, Exalogic Solutions, received nearly Rs 2 crore from the CMRL without providing services between 2017 and 2020.
The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) filed a complaint in the case in April 2025. However, the Kerala High Court ordered a status quo on a trial court order on taking cognisance of the matter. Riyas has been mostly silent, giving no responses to the allegations.
In January 2024, Mohamed Riyas got embroiled in yet another controversy during the Kozhikode Republic Day parade. In a break from customs, he reached the parade not in a police car but in a private contractor’s vehicle.
After being censured, Riyas said he did not choose the vehicle and could not even check the documents before boarding it. He also sought a report from the district collector and district police chief.
In April of the same year, during the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, the Kozhikode district collector issued a notice to Mohamed Riyas based on a complaint against him by Congress for “violating” the model code of conduct by announcing a state government plan to build an international stadium in Kozhikode during an election campaign.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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