In retrospect, perhaps it wasn't the best way to try to attract voters to the party that has never won a seat in the state assembly. But on Monday, as Narendra Modi addressed a Bharatiya Janata Party rally in Kasargod, he decided to compare God's Own Country to Somalia.
''The unemployment rate in Kerala is at least three-times higher than the national average,” the prime minister said. "Infant mortality rate among the Scheduled Tribe community in Kerala is worse than Somalia."
The comparison with the sub-Saharan African nation did not sit well with the people of a state that leads India on several human development indicators, especially literacy. On Tuesday, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy wrote a stinging letter to Modi after his election speech, saying that his "baseless claims" were "unbecoming of a prime minister".
"Is it not a shame for the prime minister to pronounce that a state like Somalia exists in the country?" Chandy asked.
It wasn't long before Kerala's Twitter users began to drum up a storm of criticism under the hashtag #PoMoneModi. The phrase "Po Mone" is a popular movie reference that literally means "go back, son".
While some produced statistics comparing Kerala's achievements with those in Modi's home state Gujarat, others resorted to humor.
Here's a lowdown of what transpired on Twitter.
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