Hyderabad, Sep 3: While Andhra Pradesh gears up for the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections, several video clips misinterpreting Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s speech at a rally on Wednesday went viral on social media. A recent video of Naidu that was being shared suggested that he had called ‘Alexander’ the President of India at a recent public meeting. The manipulated video doing the rounds seemed to suggest he was referring to Alexander the Great.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP), however, released the original footage of the video on their Facebook page, countering the fake news. According to a report by The News Minute, the video that was circulated on social media had multiple cuts showing wrong information. Naidu had made the speech at Nara Hamara - TDP Hamara, a Muslim-outreach campaign by the party.

Take a look at the original footage:

The report quoted a video in which Naidu says, “In the history of the Telugu Desam Party, not once or twice… in this country if we make Alexander the President of India… if we make Alexander the President of India, I will only say one thing — in this country, out of all people who are eligible, we convinced the Prime Minister that he only should be the President. The only party to have cooperated is this Telugu Desam Party.” Soon after, the TDP published the portion of the original speech – where Naidu is referring to PC Alexander, who was a candidate for the President’s post when APJ Abdul Kalam was elected the President of India.

The video that the TDP released shows the original speech in which Naidu says, “In one country, if Alexander was made the President of India, I will say only one thing. For this country, where all kinds of people who are eligible – I told Abdul Kalam that the only he should be there. I convinced the Prime Minister and I convinced Abdul Kalam for the post of President… the only party to have cooperated for the post of President is this Telugu Desam Party.”

It must be noted that Padinjarethalakal Cherian Alexander, commonly known as PC Alexander, is former civil servant and politician who hailed from Kerala. Alexander has held several high positions in the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi regimes.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 05, 2018 07:16 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).