The central leadership of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) on Thursday said Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan cannot become the brand ambassador of Kerala Tourism as he is already promoting Gujarat, which is governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“The Left front government in Kerala will not have the same brand ambassador (who has already been appointed by the Narendra Modi government),” CPM politburo member Sitaram Yechury told reporters here.

He was reacting to the Kerala’s CPM-led Left Front government’s move to appoint Bachchan as brand ambassador of state tourism.

Bachchan was in the state for a few functions last month. It was during an interview to a TV channel that the actor said he would gladly accept the offer to become Kerala tourism’s brand ambassador.

Soon after, the Kerala Tourism wrote to him and also received his acceptance letter.

Meanwhile, Kerala Tourism Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan told Tuesday that “a few social and cultural personalities have expressed their displeasure in inviting Big B to promote Kerala tourism”.

“Stiff opposition to this has also come from Delhi and that has surprised many of us,” the minister said.

The state government has already deputed the director of tourism M Sivasankar to hold talks with Mr Bachchan. However, there are worries within the state party unit that the move could upset Muslims in the state. The CPM had adopted an aggressive Muslim appeasement strategy during the recent Lok Sabha polls to re-capture its waning minority votebank.

The bickering within the party is bound to cause some embarrassment to the LDF government, which decided to approach Mr Bachchan at a time when Kerala’s tourist figures were dropping. The state government had been searching for a brand ambassador to give a boost to tourism in the state when Mr Bachchan in a television interview expressed his willingness to become brand ambassador for Kerala tourism.

The state’s efforts to draw tourists to its breathtaking beauty have taken a hit with frequent hartals paralysing life and often causing violence. With a record of around 100 hartals a year at one point, all of which were generally successful, the state bears the loss of several crores