Kottayam (Kerala) Jan 17 (IANS): Patience is running out and there will be strong retaliation if the CPI-M in Kerala did not stop attacking its cadres, a senior BJP leader warned on Tuesday.

"If the attacks on our cadres continue then there will be intervention from the Centre and the CPI-M will know the strength of the BJP in other states in the country," said Nalin Kumar Kateel while speaking at the inauguration of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Kerala unit committee here. 

Since the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)-led Left government assumed office in Kerala in May last year, BJP leaders here say that they have lost ten of their workers and several of them have been roughed up by CPI-M activists.

Kateel also pointed out that while BJP-ruled states have significantly progressed on many fronts, Kerala has become the number one state for political murders.

"The law and order situation in Kerala is similar to what the situation was in Bihar when Lalu Prasad Yadav ruled the state. The credibility of the Pinarayi Vijayan government has been eroded badly," said Kateel, who is a Lok Sabha member from Dakshina Kannada constituency in Karnataka. 

The BJP in Kerala got a morale booster in the May 2016 assembly polls when, for the first time, it won a seat in the 140-member assembly. 

The BJP's veteran former Union Minister of State O. Rajagopal was elected from the Nemom constituency in the capital city.