Why a Congress X post targeting CJI sparked a row in Keralam and prompted a party apology | Explained

The KPCC’s digital media cell does have a history of courting national controversies. In September 2025, when the campaigning for the Bihar elections reached its apogee, it sought to draw an arguably humiliating equivalence between “Beedis and Biharis” via its X handle.

Sunny Joseph, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president and Electricity Minister in the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government in Keralam, on Tuesday (October 27, 2026) scrambled to distance the ruling party from a now-withdrawn controversial post on Congress State unit’s X handle which urged Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant to resign.

On October 12, the KPCC’s official handle on X, Congress Kerala (@INCKerala), pivoted against Justice Kant after he expressed reservations about meeting a delegation of INDIA bloc leaders led by Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament, Rahul Gandhi, and All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge, citing the issue being sub judice.

The contentious post read: “Dear Surya Kant, if law and order is not your domain, resign now. We will find your replacement who can handle it.”

Consequently, Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) joint secretary Meeneesh Dubey issued a legal notice to Mr Joseph, demanding a public apology, an open reprimand of the post’s author, and the preservation of electronic logs, including timestamps, for a potential criminal inquiry. Mr Dubey warned that the SCBA would initiate criminal contempt proceedings in the Supreme Court if its demands were not met within a week. Mr Dubey also questioned why the KPCC had not publicly apologised to Justice Kant for the “offensive” post, despite the AICC disavowing the “callous” remark.

The SCBA also asked Mr Joseph to disclose the name and designation of the persons who authored, approved, and finally published the questionable comment. It also queried why the KPCC had not initiated discplinary action against the “perpetrators”.

In his expansive reply to Mr Dubey’s legal notice, Mr Joseph identified the author as Vijay Thottathil, associated with the KPCC’s digital media cell. Mr Joseph stated that Mr Thottathil had published the post on the party’s official X handle “without the prior knowledge, approval or consultation of the KPCC leadership”.

Mr Joseph said the KPCC had subsequently removed Mr Thottathil from the post, deleted the comment from the party’s official X handle, and ordered the latter to issue a public apology.

“On the party’s behalf, I tender an unconditional apology to the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India for the publication and disrespect conveyed by its language. This apology is independent of the public apology sought from Mr Thottathil”, Mr Joseph stated. He promised to preserve the relevant electronic records, access logs, approval records and internal communications as demanded by Mr Dubey. He said the KPCC has initiated an internal course correction and restructuring of its media cell so that such faux pas do not recur.

The INDIA bloc leaders had sought Justice Kant’s time on October 12 when the Opposition protests demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged electoral irregularities, including the purported use of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls to “tilt the electoral field in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s favour” were raging in New Delhi.

Justice Kant had declined the request, citing sub judice. He said the matters concerning the SIR were pending before the Supreme Court and that discussing or receiving memoranda about cases under judicial consideration would raise questions concerning judicial impartiality, fairness and conflict of interest. Justice Kant’s position sparked the controversial post, which put the Congress at the national and State levels on the defensive.

Notably, the BJP had strongly condemned the post. It used the communication to portray the Congress as a party which did not swear by the rule of law.

The KPCC’s digital media cell does have a history of courting national controversies. In September 2025, when the campaigning for the Bihar elections reached its apogee, it sought to draw an arguably humiliating equivalence between “Beedis and Biharis” via its X handle.

The then head of the KPCC’s digital communications cell, V.T. Balaram, had to step down after the BJP made the post an election issue against the INDIA bloc Opposition in Bihar. The “derisive post” had drawn sharp criticism from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, who had led the bloc’s “anti-voter fraud” campaign against the Central government alongside Mr Gandhi.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], an INDIA bloc fellow traveller at the national level, accused the KPCC of boosting the BJP’s “flagging fortunes” in Bihar by mocking the State’s electorate.

The naming of Mr Thottathil as the author of the post under discussion has sharply divided Congress supporters on social media, with many Congress handles on X and Facebook pledging their support to him. Some went to the extent of blaming the KPCC leadership for the fiasco and said the party should not have thrown him under the bus.

If the now-withdrawn post had become controversial, the party’s apology has now made many party supporters restive and rebellious.