‘Beedis and Bihar’ X post row: Congress in Kerala rallies around V.T. Balram after party’s digital media head draws flak

The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) on Monday (September 8, 2025) hastened to the defence of its “embattled” digital media cell head and State vice-president V.T. Balram.

The KPCC closed ranks a day after Mr. Balram drew oblique criticism from Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State committee member and Excise Minister M.B. Rajesh for allegedly boosting Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) “flagging fortunes” by “irresponsibly drawing a humiliating equivalence” between “Beedis and Biharis” via its X handle, INC@Kerala.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Mr. Rajesh, without naming Mr. Balram, accused INC@Kerala of ceding a propaganda advantage, “wilfully or otherwise,” to a “hemmed-in” BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ahead of the crucial Assembly elections in Bihar.

He noted that the “derisive post” had drawn criticism from RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav who recently led the INDIA bloc’s anti-voters’ list fraud campaign alongside Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Mr. Rajesh also accused the KPCC’s social media handle of “continually broadcasting a right-wing slant” by lauding demonitisation and disparaging iconic communist leaders, including A.K. Gopalan.

He accused the KPCC’s digital media team of showering derision on women writers, notably K.R. Meera, and belittling leaders of social organisations, notably Nair Service Society (NSS) general secretary G. Sukumaran Nair, and former KPCC presidents Mullapally Ramachandran and V.M. Sudheeran.

Sunny Joseph slams CPI(M)

Meanwhile, KPCC president Sunny Joseph, MLA, denied reports that Mr. Balram had resigned from the post in contrition.

He accused the CPI(M) of parroting the BJP’s “anti-Congress propaganda” to undermine the political momentum gained by Mr. Gandhi’s campaign Voter Adhikar Yatra, which concluded recently in Bihar. 

Mr. Joseph stated that the BJP had distorted INC@Kerala’s play on words to caricature the Centre’s move to slash the prohibitive tax on beedis as a popular measure to woo rural voters, regardless of its harmful impact on public health. The BJP took the comment out of context and misrepresented it as patently insulting to Biharis.

He said the KPCC pulled down the post and rendered a qualified apology to stymie the BJP’s bid to re-route growing public anger against the Central government’s “devious move to disenfranchise a significant portion of Bihar’s electorate” using the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision of voters’ lists as a “pretext”.

On Sunday, Kerala’s Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan appeared to strike a different note by stating he was not aware of a KPCC-controlled digital media cell.

He also posited that certain purportedly pro-Congress social media handles worked as proxies for political rivals.