By: Rajeswari Parasa
September 27 2023
The person in the video confirmed his identity to Logically Facts. It doesn't feature Additional Advocate General Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy.
What is the claim?
A video showing a man dancing to a Telugu song is being shared with a claim that it shows Andhra Pradesh Additional Advocate General (AAG) Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy, who is now appearing on behalf of the state’s Crime Investigation Department(CID) in the case involving former chief minister and Telugu Desam party chief N Chandrababu Naidu.
Naidu, who has been sent to judicial custody by an Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) court till October 5, has been accused of misappropriation of funds in the Andhra Pradesh Skill Development Corporation while he was the chief minister of the state between 2014 to 2019.
Social media users claim that the video is an old clip of Reddy dancing. An archive version of several posts can be seen here, here, and here.
Screenshot of the viral claim. (Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
However, the claim is false. The person seen in the video is a social media user, Pabba Saidulu.
What is the fact?
While going through the comments on one of the posts on X (formerly Twitter), we saw a user sharing a Facebook link of the same video uploaded on Saidulu's profile. However, we have refrained from adding the screenshot of the comment because of its abusive nature.
Logically Facts reached out to Saidulu who told us, “I recorded that video recently on September 5 in my village in Khammam district. And posted on Facebook and on Instagram. I run a grocery store and make reels whenever I have free time.” We also found the video on his Instagram and Facebook account. There are several other dance reels uploaded to his Facebook profile.
We found a photo of Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy from 2016 on YSR Congress’ website, and compared it with that of the person seen dancing in the video.
Comparison between AAG Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy and Pabba Saidulu (Source: YSRCongress.com/Facebook/PabbaSaidulu)
Clearly, the video shows Saidulu, who hails from Khammam district of Telangana and not AAG Reddy from Andhra Pradesh.
The verdict
The person seen in the video is a social media user and not the AAG Reddy. Hence we have marked this claim as false.