Hyderabad: The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president B Mahesh Kumar Goud, on Saturday, June 13, said a show-cause notice has been issued to senior Congress leader and Advisor to the state government Mohammed Ali Shabbir, with regard to his comments against the party in a telephone conversation a year ago, which has now gone viral.
In the purported audio clip, Shabbir Ali could be heard speaking with a local party functionary from Kamareddy. During the conversation, he is heard saying that he feels like ending his life after not being selected for a party post. He also questions, “Who is this Gaddam Chandrasekhar Reddy?”
Ali is allegedly heard claiming that Gaddam Chandrasekhar Reddy secured the post by paying money and by making women sleep with Goud.
The year-old clip went viral on Friday, June 12, when a few local party workers from Kamareddy posted pictures of Mahesh Kumar Goud, Shabbir Ali and Chandrasekhar Reddy’s wife, Gaddam Indu Priya Reddy, with the audio. The post allegedly contained vulgar comments against Indu Priya.
Complaint lodged against Shabbir Ali
Indu Priya has formally lodged a complaint with the Kamareddy Superintendent of Police, M Rajesh Chandra, against Shabbir Ali, accusing him of directing social media trolling and expletives against her in the local groups.
Addressing the media from the SP office on Friday, June 12, she levied allegations against Ali’s older brother’s son, Sheru; Ali’s son, Ilyaz; and his follower, Parvez. They are charged with spreading false information and vulgar comments against her.
She claimed that a person named Shaikh Mukhtar, who resides in the Gulf, is responsible for the party’s social media content of Kamareddy and has been facilitating the attacks against her.
“Who is this Parvez? For the past 12 years, he has been away from Kamareddy. Now Shabbir Ali is keeping him close to him and doing all this,” she said, also cautioning that Shabbir Ali’s actions could lead to communal tensions between different communities in Kamareddy.
Indu Priya felt that Shabbir Ali was maligning her image and resorting to character assassination because of the hard work she and her husband were doing in the constituency, even since Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had contested against former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) from Kamareddy in the 2023 assembly elections.
Terming Shabbir Ali “unfit to be the government advisor,” Indu Priya questioned how many more years he would perpetrate atrocities against her.
She also said that she was going to raise the issue with the high command and, if needed, would approach Rahul Gandhi.
Though the issue may seem like a vertical division in the Kamareddy Congress party due to a telephone conversation, many believe there is more to it than meets the eye.
Rewind to 2018 and 2023 Assembly elections
Shabbir Ali contested from the Nizamabad Urban Assembly constituency in the 2023 Telangana elections, vacating his home constituency and letting Revanth Reddy contest, as the stakes were high because of KCR.
Shabbir Ali had lost to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Dhanpal Suryanarayana by a margin of 15,387 votes.
After the Congress’ victory, and more specifically after Mahesh Kumar Goud, who hails from Nizamabad Urban constituency, was made the TPCC president, the internal power politics changed. Shabbir Ali was reportedly directed to play an active role in Kamareddy.
The rise of Indu Priya and her husband in Kamareddy
However, in Kamareddy, things had changed. Indu Priya, who had served as the former municipal vice-chairperson and as the municipal chairperson when she was with the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) before the elections, and her husband, Gadam Chandrasekhar Reddy, had gained control over the party affairs.
Indu Priya and her husband joined Congress just before the 2023 elections and played a key role during Revanth Reddy’s campaign in Kamareddy. It is also known that Chandrasekhar Reddy has been a close confidante of Revanth’s brother, A Kondal Reddy.
It was in that backdrop that Chandrasekhar Reddy got the general secretary’s post in 2025. This was when the friction between the two Congress groups started in Kamareddy.
The larger power play in the background
There appears to be a matter between three main players within the Telangana Congress’ leadership – Mahesh Kumar Goud, Shabbir Ali, and Revanth Reddy.
And Indu Priya seems to be at the center of a much bigger political battle.
The timing of the audio clip’s release, who leaked it, and why are the questions only the main players will be able to answer.
