Profanity caught on mic and a late entrance: Kerala’s top two Congress leaders play down awkward moment

Congress’s Kerala unit president K Sudhakaran has sparked another controversy when he was heard on mic using profanity while enquiring about why his party colleague V D Satheesan, the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, was late to a joint press conference.

The incident took place on Saturday in Alappuzha, where Sudhakaran and Satheesan were scheduled to jointly address the media as part of the Congress’s ongoing state-wide yatra to put key issues before the people ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The yatra began earlier this month, and the duo have jointly addressed the media every day since then in a bid to showcase unity in the party’s state leadership.

Sudhakaran, flanked by party leaders from Alappuzha Shanimol Usman and Babu Prasad, sat before the gathered journalists for the press conference at around 10.30 am. After around 20 minutes, Sudhakaran seemed to get fidgety over Satheesan’s failure to turn up. When he asked where Satheesan was, Prasad said he was at a chess tournament venue, and that was when Sudhakaran used an abusive word.

Prasad and Shanimol looked visibly embarrassed as they quickly told Sudhakaran that the mics and cameras were on. Soon after, Satheesan turned up at the venue for the press conference.

After the issue became a controversy, both leaders tried to play it down.

Satheesan said, “We are like brothers. He has the freedom to say that… It should be seen as a conversation between two colleagues. Such things happen in talks between close friends.”

Sudhakaran also said the two were like brothers. “I am straightforward. I said we should show propriety towards the media. We are like brothers. Throughout this yatra, we were together. He has taken more initiative than me in the yatra. There