Trolls with ‘Shafi’s blessings’ target Satheesan after Mamkoottathil’s suspension

Kerala’s leader of Opposition VD Satheesan is at the centre of an unprecedented cyber onslaught, not from his political adversaries in the Left or the BJP, but from within his party, allegedly driven by supporters of suspended Congress MLA Rahul Mamkoottathil and MP Shafi Parambil.

For the past several days, coordinated attacks have flooded social media, branding Satheesan with slurs such as “green Sanghi” and “Pinarayi’s ally”, questioning his ideological credibility. The trolling has gone further, laced with innuendos and profanities veiled in sarcasm.

He has been mockingly called “cakeachan” (cake-dad) — a reference to his appearance with the woman who raised allegations against Mamkoottathil, where he was seen cutting a birthday cake with her. The term carried the sexualised undertone of internet slang “sugar daddy”. Another derisive nickname, “Chatheesan” (God of cheating, rhyming with Satheesan), also circulated widely, alongside several other jibes.

Also read: FIR against MLA Rahul Mamkoottathil for stalking and sexual misconduct

Vicious attack

The offensive, which party insiders describe as “crossing all limits of political decency”, has thrown Kerala’s Congress into a turmoil. What might once have been dismissed as fringe trolling has now escalated into a full-scale intra-party digital war, with the attacks carrying all the hallmarks of an organised campaign rather than spontaneous outrage.

The trigger for the assault lies in the suspension of Rahul Mamkoottathil, Youth Congress state president and MLA, following allegations of sexual misconduct and coercive abortion, which tarnished the party’s image greatly.

Satheesan was one of the first senior leaders to take a firm stand in favour of disciplinary action, a position that aligned with the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee’s leadership. Yet, it was precisely this firmness that provoked Mamkoottathil’s loyalists, many of them young online volunteers, to turn their ire against him.

Women bear the brunt

It was not just Satheesan who came under fire. Women Congress leaders who had demanded action against Mamkoottathil also became targets of the virulent and nasty campaign.

Trikkakkara MLA Uma Thomas faced trolling so vicious that some handles even wished her dead after she met with an accident last year, with one post reading, “It would have been better if this hag had died when she fell from the stage.”

Tara Tojo Alex, a young and upcoming Youth Congress leader, was similarly attacked with a barrage of sexually coloured remarks. The harassment was so severe that she was eventually removed from all Congress-related social media groups.

Also read: Congress under fire, attempts to deflect heat over Mamkoottathil scandal

Insider hand

Initially, leaders including Satheesan tried to defend the attacks by alleging that they were the handiwork of CPI(M) activists using fake IDs. But it later became evident that many of the trolls were in fact Congress or IUML supporters — members of the UDF’s own cyber army, which had until recently been deployed to defend them against the Left.

“Most of the trolling is being done by Mamkoottathil’s online fans. Some attacks are clearly from paid handles,” admitted a senior Congress leader, pointing to the scale and coordination of the digital blitz. Unlike sporadic criticism, this offensive has involved targeted memes, hashtags, and relentless personal attacks designed to undermine Satheesan’s credibility both within the party and in the public sphere.

Telling silence

If the trolling itself was damaging, what has unsettled Congress observers more is the silence of Vadakara MP Shafi Parambil. A rising star in the party and once seen as Satheesan’s protege, Shafi is also a close associate of Mamkoottathil. His decision not to publicly condemn the attacks has sparked intense speculation about his tacit approval, and CPI(M) cyber handles are pushing the narrative that Shafi may be involved in coordinating the attacks against Satheesan and the Left, and leaders have also hinted that.

“Shafi’s silence is speaking louder than words,” said a Congress source. “He knows exactly what is going on, and his refusal to intervene is being read as a signal that the digital offensive against Satheesan has his blessing.”

The insinuation that Shafi may be positioning himself as an alternative pole of leadership adds to the intrigue. For years, Satheesan and Shafi, along with other younger leaders of the party, were projected as a reformist bloc representing the Congress’s generational shift beyond the entrenched ‘A group’ versus ‘I group’ divide. But the current rift suggests that new fault lines are emerging, powered less by traditional factional affiliations and more by digital networks of influence.

Also read: Kerala: Congress to intensify protests over youth leader's 'torture'

Leadership backs Satheesan

Publicly, the party leadership has stood with Satheesan. Senior leaders, including KPCC president Sunny Joseph, have backed the decision to suspend Mamkoottathil, framing it as a matter of discipline and principle.

Interestingly, in recent days, many leaders have begun to backtrack, with UDF convener Adoor Prakash even suggesting that the allegations against Rahul Mamkoottathil might be AI-generated.

“Satheesan has the support of almost all senior leaders. But the fact that he is being targeted so viciously by people from within shows how fragile our internal discipline has become,” another senior Congress leader acknowledged.

“We are clueless about what is happening in the party. I do believe the allegations against Mamkoottathil have substance, and there were already rumours about it within the party. But I personally prefer not to come out in the open, as I am really worried about facing a cyber-attack. My mental well-being is also important to me. The party needs to step in with some serious intervention at this juncture,” said a well-known woman Congress leader.

Battleground shift

The Congress in Kerala has long been faction-ridden, but the battleground has shifted. Where once factional rivalries played out through closed-door manoeuvring or carefully placed stories in the Malayalam media, today, they explode in real time on X, Instagram, and Facebook, often beyond the control of traditional managers.

The irony is that the Congress in Kerala had until recently been praised for its relatively disciplined digital presence, thanks largely to professional inputs from strategist Sunil Kanugolu and his team. But with professional oversight fading, the party’s online space has fragmented into loosely organised, leader-centric networks. These networks, loyal to individual figures like Mamkoottathil, can launch campaigns at will, often without regard for the party’s collective interests.

The controversy over an X post on Bihar and the subsequent uproar that led VT Balram to step down as the party’s digital media in-charge — a move later denied by the leadership — is another telling example of the Congress’s fragile digital strategy and deepening communication missteps.

Also read: Who are they? Shashi Tharoor takes on Congress leaders in Kerala

A volatile ecosystem

Unlike the BJP, which maintains a centralised IT cell, or the CPI(M), which tightly monitors its online committees, Congress has left much of its digital activism to poll strategists and informal supporters’ groups. The result is a volatile ecosystem where factional loyalty is expressed less through organisational structures and more through likes, shares, and hashtags.

The timing could not be worse. With Assembly elections just over a year away, Congress is locked in a high-stakes battle to present itself as the only viable alternative to the CPI(M)-led Left in Kerala, even as the BJP attempts to expand its presence. Internal discord playing out so publicly risks eroding both the party’s image of unity and its ability to command narrative control.