The Telangana Police on Monday detained Sumiran Kommaraju, who heads the social media cell of the state Bharatiya Janata Party, for a poster that “maliciously defamed” Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, The Indian Express reported.
The BJP claimed that two others members of the social media cell, Sai Kiran Goud and Ajay, were also taken into custody.
In the poster pasted outside the Congress’ headquarters in Hyderabad and uploaded on social media, Reddy was shown seated on a chair with multiple robotic arms. Each arm had a piece of paper with corruption allegations and other such claims written on them.
The poster was titled the “Two-year progress report of Congress CM Revanth Reddy”.
The police said that an employee of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation had filed a complaint in this regard on December 6, the Deccan Herald reported. The accused BJP members were subsequently summoned to the police station and given notices, the police said.
A first information report has been registered in connection with the poster, The Indian Express quoted the police as saying.
N Ramachander Rao, the BJP’s Telangana chief, said that the arrest was “undemocratic and intolerant”. “They [Congress] can make posters of [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi selling chai, but cannot stand a poster criticising Revanth Reddy,” he was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
The BJP’s national social media handle, responding to the police action, claimed that the “Emergency mindset is still well and alive in India”. It added that the Congress government in Telangana “can’t handle the truth, so they resort to authoritarianism”.
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