# India

Telangana LS polls marred by fake clips galore

On Friday, Congress candidate from Karimnagar V Rajender Rao was booked for reportedly sharing an edited audio clip of sitting BJP MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar

ANINDITA CHOWDHURY | Hyderabad | May 3, 2024 9:27 pm

Telangana LS polls marred by fake clips galore

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in Telangana, a flurry of doctored clips and forged documents doing the rounds on social media is keeping the police on their toes.

On Friday, Congress candidate from Karimnagar V Rajender Rao was booked for reportedly sharing an edited audio clip of sitting BJP MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar.

Earlier, five members of the social media team of the Telangana Congress were arrested by the Hyderabad Police for sharing an edited video of Union Minister Amit Shah on reservations. While Shah had accused the Congress of allowing Muslims to avail of reservations the edited clip suggests that he was in favour of scrapping the quota of the SCs, STs, and OBCs.

Following a complaint by the BJP, the five, including their social media in-charge Satish Manne, were first detained, and then arrested. They all got bail after being produced in court.

Incidentally, the Delhi Police had registered a case following a complaint by the BJP in its jurisdiction.

Although the five got bail easily, in the case of BRS social media convenor Krishank, the bail hearing was pushed to Monday. He got into a spat with Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy over the closure of the Osmania University hostel.

Reddy had posted a notice issued by the chief warden dated last year announcing the closure of the hostel. The letter also suggested there was a scarcity of water and power.

However, Krishank called the notice fake and posted another claiming it to be genuine, where there was no mention of scarcity of water and power.

He was arrested and sent to judicial remand. The chief minister’s office was also busy on Friday disclaiming that a person had died in Nizamabad after being struck by a vehicle in his convoy. The allegation was made by BJP candidate from Nizamabad Arvind Dharmapuri forcing the CMO to release a CCTV grab and case diary.