A video claiming to show a Communist rally in Kerala protesting the killing of Maoist leaders Basavaraju and Pappu Lohra with slogans, “No to capitalism, no to Hindi imposition,” is being widely shared on social media platforms.
The archived version of the post can be seen here,here and here.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah recently announced that twenty seven Maoists, including Nambala Keshav Rao, alias Basavaraju, the general secretary of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), were gunned down in an anti-Naxal operation in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district on May 21, 2025. Both the CPI(M) and the CPI had condemned the killings and accused the government of following a “policy of annihilation” instead of seeking dialogue.
However, we did not find any newspaper reports of either CPI(M) or the CPI organising a rally in Kerala to protest against the killing of the Maoist leaders, leadings us to fact check the viral claim.
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Fact Check/ Verification
Newschecker found that apart from the slogans in English, the attendants of the rally could also be heard raising slogans in Tamil. We also ran the keyframes of the viral video on Google reverse image search, which led us to a YouTube post by CPIM Tamilnadu on April 9, 2025 carrying similar footage. The description of the video in Tamil read, “Full-length parade footage of the Senthondar Brigade,” and carried the hashtags #CPIM24thPartyCongress and #CPIM24thCongressMarxist.
On comparing the viral video with the YouTube video, we found several similarities.
Su Venkatesan, the CPI(M) MP representing Madurai, also posted a similar video on April 7, 2025 on his X page. The description of the video, in Tamil, read, “Madurai was shaken by five lakh people! This is not just a Marxist conference; it is a war cry against the fascists.”
On further research, we found a report by The Hindu, dated April 6, 2025, which said, “Red Volunteers of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) took out a march from ELCOT near Pandi Kovil to Mastanpatti, the venue of the party’s public meeting, in Madurai on Sunday, the concluding day of the CPI(M)’s 24th party congress in Madurai which began on April 2.”
We also geolocated the road in which the rally took place as the Airport-Mattuthavani Ring Road on google maps.
Conclusion
Our investigation confirms that the viral video claiming to show a communist rally in Kerala to protest the killing of Maoist leaders Basavaraju and Pappu Lohra is false. The video shows a volunteer march held in Madurai on April 6, 2025, in connection with the CPI(M) Party Congress.
Sources
YouTube Video by CPIM Tamilnadu on April 9, 2025
X Post by Su Venkatesan on April 7,2025
News report by The Hindu dated April 6,2025
Google Maps
