Delhi Confidential: Username Search

HIS SOCIAL media presence is said to have played a key role in V D Satheesan’s election campaign in Kerala. Now that he is all set to take oath as the Chief Minister of the state on Monday, his social media team is faced with an unforeseen problem. The Kerala CMO does not have an official Instagram handle. Satheesan’s team discovered that most of the possible usernames, such as CMOKerala and CMOKeralam, have already been claimed by ‘cybersquatters’. They have now reached out to Meta to get at least one of those usernames released so they can use it as the official handle of the new Chief Minister’s Office. The team is wondering why no attempt was made by the previous regime to secure a username for the CMO.

Changing Roles

WHEN TAMIL Nadu Chief Minister Vijay announced his team, some state BJP leaders were amused to see the name of CTR Nirmal Kumar among the Cabinet ministers. They recalled Kumar as the IT head of Tamil Nadu BJP for four years. Party insiders said differences with then BJP’s state unit president K Annamalai forced him to quit the party and join the AIADMK in 2023. He switched to Vijay’s team in January 2025 as a digital strategist.