KOCHI: Kerala's most controversial politician, George 'the Terrible', just had a visit to London, and Malayalees can't stop laughing about it.
PC George, the MLA from a small constituency in central Kerala called Poonjar, is a free ranger who won a shock victory as an independent in the May 2016 assembly polls. Five months later, he was in London to meet expat Keralites ahead of launching his own party, Janapaksham (roughly translated as 'for the people').
The fun started the moment George touched down in London.
In one of the photographs that went viral on social media, a London registration car is waiting for George, with a paper stuck at the back that read: "Poonjar MLA PC George".
Even before the trolls finished creating memes on this amusing story, he stunned all into squirmy silence by unleashing an abusive tirade, on live television, against another participant of a news show - all because of a case of mistaken identity.
Taking part in the show from London, George mistook M K Kuruvilla, the complainant who won a case against their common enemy, former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, with Thomas Kuruvilla, a close associate of Oommen Chandy.
What followed was a torrent of cusswords in Malayalam, which the desperate attempts by the anchor and Kuruvilla couldn't stop. They did whatever they could to pacify him and explain things, but George was in no mood to listen.
The rant was so-not Victorian that one of the countless memes on this visit has the Queen and the Prince of England deciding to run away from London, away from the Palace and the best creature comforts in the world, to escape George's acid tongue-lashing over returning the Kohinoor.
It would be new for the Queen, but certainly not for Malayalees who often get to experience a dose of the rustic leader's colourful personality on live TV debates. A year ago, he had locked horns with hotelier-turned-whistleblower in the controversial bar bribery scam, Biju Ramesh, in his typical style.
In an otherwise sedate politics of Kerala, George is a unique figure who does not have any cadre base outside his constituency, but makes up for it with relentless attacks on rivals during television debates.
Not surprising then that he is the only MLA to be censured by the state Assembly for his derogatory comments on political leaders, some of them late legends of Kerala politics who have admirers across party lines. Those times too, it was the same television camera that became his undoing when a TV channel aired candid visuals of George's vitriol.