Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has stirred a row over the Ministry of External Affairs denying him permission for his visit to Boston, US, for “political reasons”. After returning from the UK to Hyderabad, CM Reddy described the Centre’s denial of permission for his US visit as an “insult” to Telangana and also defended his possible meeting with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
CM Revanth Reddy claimed that the purpose of his US visit was to promote Telangana as a sports and investment hub as well as to attract world-class universities to the state
“We had informed the MEA about the visit. The CMO had informed the MEA about the purpose of the visit. The objective was to promote Telangana as a sports and investment hub and bring world-class universities to the state. MEA examined the proposal and informed that, for political reason visit was declined,” CM Reddy said.
CM Revanth Reddy gives a ‘Telangana vs Gujarat’ spin to the MEA snub
Revanth Reddy, who leads the Congress government in Telangana, gave a Gujarat-BJP versus Telangana-Congress spin to the issue.
“I was denied permission to travel to lead the Telangana Rising delegation even as the Gujarat CM was allowed to travel under the banner of Vibrant Gujarat. This is an insult to the self-respect of Telangana…This is not the permission denial to Revanth Reddy but a disrespect toward the Telangana people. It’s because of Gujarat supremacy. It is like obstructing Telangana’s growth and development,” CM Reddy said.
“What is the political angle – Modi is BJP, Revanth Reddy is Congress, Modi is Gujarat, Revanth is Telangana, is this the ‘political angle’ which they mentioned while denying the permission? It is totally against federal cooperation. Gujarat is conspiring against Telangana; I condemn it,” he added.
Revanth Reddy now wants a viva from the Prime Minister.
— The Analyzer (News Updates🗞️) (@Indian_Analyzer) August 25, 2026
> MEA blocked the US leg. He asks: "What is the political reason?"
Mamdani, he says, is an elected mayor, not an "ANTI-Social element".
He claims he never applied to meet Vance or Mamdani.
A Chief Minister’s foreign… pic.twitter.com/DjoYTRbSqc
CM Revanth Reddy claimed that the Central government discriminated against him and a non-BJP-ruled Telangana by denying clearance for his US visit, and that this denial was about ‘Gujarat supremacy’. A question, however, arises: if the Centre had to discriminate against the Congress-ruled state, why would it grant clearance to CM Reddy even for his UK visit?
If Prime Minister Narendra Modi “did not care about the federal structure” in the context of Reddy’s planned US visit, why would he care about the same when his government granted permission for Reddy’s UK tour?
Training his guns against PM Modi, CM Reddy asked whose permission PM Modi took before his unplanned visit to Lahore, Pakistan in 2015.
Reddy, however, forgot that the Prime Minister is the highest authority of the executive government, requiring no legal permission or clearance from any other authority, including the President of India. PM Modi visiting Pakistan in 2015 was a bilateral call he was well authorised to take; Revanth Reddy, on the contrary, is the Chief Minister of an Indian state and would require the Centre’s clearance for his official foreign visits.
Notably, CM Reddy was reported to visit the campuses of Harvard University and MIT on 24th August. He was also scheduled visit to the North-Eastern campus and hold a meeting with a team of Virginia Tech University in Boston on 25th August the North-Eastern campus and meeting with a team from Virginia Tech University in Boston on 25th August. A meet-and-greet event with the Indian Overseas Congress in New York on 26th August was planned.
However, the most controversial part of his itinerary was a possible meeting with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and US Vice President JD Vance.
Citing MEA sources, NDTV reported that Reddy’s proposed meetings included those with JD Vance and Zohran Mamdani; however, the programme was not routed through the MEA.
Why did the MEA deny clearance for Revanth Reddy’s US visit?
Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy planned to visit the United Kingdom and then to the US before returning to India; however, the MEA granted permission only for the UK leg of the tour. The MEA said that clearance was not granted because the proposed purpose of Reddy’s visit did not match the itinerary of the visit.
Notably, the political clearance system is used by the Central government to assess official and political foreign visits by Indian dignitaries.
“Let me say that the visits of chief ministers, as indeed those of other dignitaries, are assessed by the Ministry of External Affairs in order to accord political clearance. The programme proposed in such cases should be appropriate to the office held and the purpose of the visit. In this particular case, that was not so with respect to the United States,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told the media.
#WATCH | Delhi: On Telangana CM Revanth Reddy's foreign visit, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal says, "… Let me also tell you that clearance was given for his visit to the United Kingdom."
— ANI (@ANI) August 21, 2026
On permission denied for Telangana CM Revanth Reddy's visit to the United States, MEA… pic.twitter.com/ulC71RmGbF
“Therefore, the clearance was denied and not given. Incidentally, let me also tell you that clearance was given for his visit to the United Kingdom,” he added.
Reports citing sources privy to the development say that while the Telangana Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) was working on the Reddy’s proposed meetings with Vance and Mamdani, these engagements were not communicated to the MEA but were independently communicated to the respective US officials.
After returning to India, however, Revanth Reddy denied having plans to meet JD Vance, though he confirmed that there were talks of his meeting with Zohran Mamdani.
‘He’s not an anti-social element’: Telangana CM Revanth Reddy defends Zohran Mamdani despite his anti-Hindu and anti-India shenanigans
Confirming the reports that there was indeed a possibility of a meeting with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, CM Revanth Reddy said that no appointment was fixed.
Defending Zohran Mamdani, CM Revanth Reddy said, “Besides, Mamdani is not an anti-social element. He is an elected Mayor.”
While Revanth Reddy said that Zohran Mamdani is not an anti-social element but an elected Mayor, Mamdani’s disdain for India and particularly Hindus is widely known.
In May 2025, Zohran Mamdani called PM Modi a “war criminal” during a public forum. He said in the context of the 2002 Gujarat Riots, which erupted after Islamists burnt a train bogey full of 59 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya, who were burnt alive. Mamdani claimed that Modi, who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat, helped the slaughter of Muslims and that hardly any Gujarati Muslims are there.
This, however, was a blatant lie as the Indian Supreme Court has already given a clean chit to PM Modi. Moreover, the population of Muslims in Gujarat, far from decreasing, has only increased over the years.
At the event, titled “New Mayor, New Media”, Mamdani also compared Modi to Israeli PM Netanyahu, saying, “This is someone we should view in the same manner we do Benjamin Netanyahu. This is a war criminal.”
Born to ‘filmmaker’ Mira Nair and Islamic terrorist-sympathiser Mahmood Mamdani in Uganda, Zohran Mamdani is notorious for making derogatory remarks against Indian Hindu leaders, especially PM Modi.
In 2020, he called Hindus associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) “fascists” and attacked fellow New York politicians Jenifer Rajkumar and Kevin Thomas for not denouncing PM Modi.
Back then, Rajkumar responded strongly, calling Mamdani’s comments “extreme and divisive,” and urged voters to “reject hate, whether from the far left or far right.”
A video from August 2022 showed him leading a mob shouting, “Who are the Hindus? “Harami (Bastards),” which went viral on social media
Behaving like a rattled Islamist, when the Ram Mandir was being built in Ayodhya in 2020, Zohran Mamdani led a rally opposing its construction. While he was speaking at the rally, derogatory remarks against Hindus were being raised behind him. The rally was organised by Khalistani terrorists.
In 2023, when PM Modi was scheduled to visit New York, Mamdani spewed venom against him and peddled blatant lies, accusing him of the 2002 Gujarat Riots.
In January 2024, Zohran Mamdani co-organised and endorsed protests in New York City that condemned the consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, branding the event as “Hindutva extremism.”
Earlier, Zohran Mamdani defended the anti-semitic “Globalise the Intifada” cry, which essentially calls for hatred and violence against Jews across the world. He also refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, a common trait among Islamists and their liberal cheerleaders.
In March 2025, assembly members Steven Raga, Zohran Mamdani, and Karine Reyes, among other cosponsors, introduced bill AB 6920 to add caste as a protected category in New York. The bill was crafted to villainise Hindus and paint a target on their back.
Zohran Mamdani has also received funding from anti-India and anti-Hindu groups active in the US, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). This Islamist outfit contributed $100,000 to New Yorkers for Lower Costs, the largest Parliamentary Action Committee (PAC) backing Zohran Mamdani. Not to forget, CAIR officials were among those who celebrated the Palestinian Islamic terror group Hamas’s massacre of innocent Israeli civilians on 7th October 2023.
OpIndia has reported earlier about how CAIR, which always complains about alleged ‘Islamophobia’ in the US, has been aggressively promoting Hinduphobia and anti-Hindu propaganda in India.
Earlier, CAIR was offended when the names of the Lashkar-e-Tayyba (LeT) terrorists and scenes from the deadly 26/11 terror attack were displayed on a mobile billboard truck in New Jersey.
Mamdani also received funding from Anti-Semitic activist Linda Sarsour and many anti-Israel groups. He also received support from Soros-funded Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), an anti-Hindu outfit, co-founded by Sunita Vishwanath.
As reported earlier, HfHR was formed in the year 2019 by two Islamist advocacy groups: Indian American Muslim Council ( IAMC) and the Organisation for Minorities of India (OFMI).
Unsurprisingly, Zohran Mamdani is also a supporter of the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi Riots accused mastermind Umar Khalid. In January 2026, he co-signed a letter by 7 to 8 Democrat politicians, demanding the release of Khalid from jail. Mamdani had also penned a personal note for the accused rioter.
While it has not directly been confirmed by the Central government if the proposed meeting with Zohran Mamdani was the major reason for the MEA’s denial of permission for Revanth Reddy’s visit to the US, the denial makes sense given Mamdani’s track record and the Telangana CMO’s reported failure to route the proposed meeting with Mamdani through the MEA for political clearance.
CM Revanth Reddy met anti-India propagandists Maya Tudor and Faisal Devji in the UK
Beyond the official clearance process, preventing Revanth Reddy from supposedly engaging with foreign leaders like Zohran Mamdani, who have earned notoriety for peddling anti-India and anti-Hindu propaganda, makes even more sense given who all CM Reddy met in the UK.
During his UK visit last week, Telangana CM Revanth Reddy arrived at the Blavatnik School of Government and met professors Maya Tudor and Faisal Devji as a part of the state’s “global education outreach”.
However, the meeting between CM Reddy and Maya Tudor and Faisal Devji triggered backlash in India over the duo’s record of peddling anti-India propaganda. Through their journals, books, articles, and various seminars, both Maya Tudor and Faisal Devji have been pushing anti-Hindu narratives and contributing to concerted Islamo-leftist efforts to tarnish India’s image globally.
