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05-05-2024
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI: Police in India have arrested the social media head of one of the country’s main opposition parties over a doctored video of the interior minister.
The Congress Party’s Arun Revanth Reddy was detained on Friday, accused of being behind a widely-shared video showing Amit Shah promising to end support for millions of poor and under-privileged Indians.
The Congress says Reddy was not involved, and accused the authorities of clamping down on rivals as the country votes in a national election.
The governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) denies the charges.
Voting in India began on 19 April and has been staggered over several days until 1 June. The results will be announced on 4 June.
Shah is often called India’s “second most powerful man” after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and is seen as the mastermind behind the rise of the BJP.
The doctored video in question showed Shah giving a campaign speech promising to end help for Muslims in the southern state of Telangana, where Arun Reddy is chief minister.
The edited video appears to show the home minister saying his party would end special treatment for other groups, too.
The Indian Express reported on Saturday that authorities seized Reddy’s electronic devices to find evidence of software used to edit the video.
“He is not involved in any doctored video. We are supporting him,” said Congress’s spokesperson Shama Mohamed.
Last month, Modi used a campaign rally in which he spoke of “infiltrators” and “those who have more children” remarks widely seen as referring to India’s Muslim minority.
The Congress made an official complaint to election authorities.
Modi has promoted a brand of muscular Hindu nationalism since coming to power a decade ago. He is expected to win a third term.
The deputy commissioner of Delhi police, Hemant Tiwari, said Reddy “was arrested yesterday on investigation about … a doctored video of the home minister”. He added: “We produced him in the court and he is in police custody.”
Shah has been campaigning on behalf of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which is widely expected to win a third term when India’s six-week election concludes next month.
Analysts have long expected Modi to triumph against an opposition alliance of Congress and more than two dozen parties that has yet to name a candidate for prime minister. His prospects have been further bolstered by several criminal investigations into his opponents and a tax investigation this year that froze Congress’s bank accounts. Opposition figures and human rights organizations have accused Modi’s government of orchestrating the investigations to weaken rivals.
Modi’s government has put the majority Hindu faith at the centre of its politics despite India’s officially secular constitution, which in turn has left India’s 220 million-strong Muslim community feeling threatened by the rise of Hindu nationalism.
Since voting began last month, both Modi and Shah have stepped up campaign rhetoric on India’s principal religious divide in an effort to rally voters.
In the original campaign speech at the centre of the police investigation against Reddy, Shah vows to end affirmative action measures for Muslims established in the southern state of Telangana.
Modi last month used a campaign rally to refer to Muslims as “infiltrators” and “those who have more children”, prompting condemnation and an official complaint to election authorities by Congress.
