The state election commission in Telangana on Tuesday ordered an investigation after a video purportedly showed a group of Muslim men pledging their support to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi in the upcoming Assembly elections, PTI reported. They pledged their support in the presence of state Transport Minister Mahender Reddy.

“There were some newspaper reports and complaints have also been made,” said the state’s Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar. “Now, since the model code of conduct is not on, if a voter takes the oath, I do not think it falls within the purview of the electoral code violation. But we have asked the district electoral officer concerned to give a report on that.”

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The video, which was taken inside a mosque in the town of Tandur, shows men “saying they will vote for the TRS as Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and Mahender Reddy have taken good care of Muslims in four years”, The Times of India reported. In several villages, people adopted resolutions during the recent Ganesh Chaturthi festivities to vote for the party and handed them over to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi’s leaders, the newspaper added.

“The TRS, out of the fear of failure, is resorting to this kind of anti-Constitution practice, which is detrimental to the principles of the secret ballot,” said state Congress spokesperson Sravan Dasoju. “This is a cheap way of manipulating people. KCR [Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao] is now scared and has realised that he committed a mistake by calling early polls.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party called it an act of “Muslim appeasement”. “It is a clear violation of Representation of People Act,” said BJP spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao. “KCR seems to be the role model for leaders such as this [Mahender Reddy]. It is a brazen violation of the law of the land to seek votes on the basis of religion.”