Argentina or Brazil? What do Kerala ministers say?

There's a joke around Kerala about football. The humorous theory is that all communists are Argentina fans since Che Guevara was born in that country and all Muslim League supporters are Brazil fans as their flag has a lot of green. Well, both ideas are frankly ridiculous. Here's what the ministers have to say.

As the FIFA World Cup 2018 continues, the ministers of the Left government in Kerala have named their favourite teams.

Electricity Minister MM Mani, popularly known as Maniyashaan, was the first person to express support. He updated his profile picture with the caption "Argentina is my heartbeat".

CPI(M) Central Committee member and Finance Minister Dr Thomas Isaac also updated his Facebook profile photo ahead of the first match inj support of Argentina.

Meanwhile, Minister of Local Administration, KT Jaleel came to the rescue of Brazil fans. "I like Argentina. But Brazil is my favourite," he wrote. "Only one team played all world cups. Only one team won the maximum number of world cups."

Energy Minister Kadakampally Surendran updated his photo to support Brazil and wrote a reply to his colleague Mani. "Canary (referring to the Brazil soccer team nickname Little Canary) is the fervour of football," he said.

Mani later posted a picture posing with a football wearing the blue-white jersey of the Argentina team. "Football is the voice of liberation," he said in a video posted to his Facebook page. "Beyond the matches, Argentina took daring [political] positions. They are the successors of Che Guevara who respected Left more than football," the video description reads. He also posted a photo in the same attire along with his office staff.

Former ministers M A Baby and E P Jayarajan also extended their support to Argentina.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan posted a photo, posing with his grandson. He said that "football unites human beings beyond limits." But he did not mention his choice of team.

Health Minister KK Shailaja also posted a picture with the words "Me too, with the football lovers."