Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy was summoned by the special cell of Delhi Police to appear before it on 1 May in connection with the case of a doctored video on Union Home Minister Amit Shah over scrapping of SC, ST and OBC reservation.

Reddy, who is also the PCC president, was away in Karnataka today campaigning for the third phase of elections with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Priyanka Gandhi. The FIR was filed on Sunday by Delhi Police. Four other Congress leaders and office bearers of PCC were also summoned by the police.

Two police officials from Delhi Police reached Gandhi Bhavan, the headquarters of Congress in Hyderabad to serve the notice. Identical notices were sent to all the leaders individually. The notice sought information about the video and also asked them to submit the same that was uploaded from their respective X handle. In addition, the electronic device that was used to upload the tweeted video as well as the one used to record the video would have to be submitted as well. They were asked to meet Inspector Neeraj Chaudhary, IFSO (Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations), special cell of Delhi police at 10:30 am on 1 May.

Apart from the chief minister, the four other leaders and office bearers included Shivakumar Ambala, Asma Tasleem, Naveen and Manne Satish. While Manne Satish is the social media in charge, Naveen and Shivakumar are part of the social media team and Asma Tasleem is a spokesperson of the state Congress. Telangana BJP leaders had complained to cyber police about the doctored video. The video was doctored in such a way so that it appeared that the Union home minister was batting for the scrapping of SC/ST and OBC reservation when he was criticising the 4 per cent reservation given to backward Muslims in the state.

State transport minister Ponnam Prabhakar accused the BJP government at the Centre of trying to terrorise the government. “If you put one case on us we will file 100 cases against you. You (BJP) are a doctorate in spreading fake news and your WhatsApp University is known for doing this and first file cases for all the fake news you have spread and then come to Congress,” said Prabhakar while accusing the BJP of trying to scrap SC/ST and OBC reservation in the country.