Congress leader Ashok Gehlot claimed that the Intelligence Bureau and the Gujarat Police searched the hotel rooms where he met Patidar movement leader Hardik Patel and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani on Monday. The Congress had invited both Patel and Mevani to join the party ahead of the Assembly election in Gujarat.

Gehlot, the All India Congress Committee general secretary in charge of poll-bound Gujarat, told The Indian Express that hotel authorities told him that “IB and police people inquired who all came… to meet whom. Then they took away CCTV footage and gave it to the media…”

Gehlot then hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter. “They wanted to know if Hardik stayed… in which room Ashok Gehlot stayed. It is the first time I have seen people stooping to this level,” he was quoted as saying.

The Ummed Hotel in Ahmedabad did not deny sharing CCTV footage, the newspaper reported. “No room was searched by the police but there were many police and IB officials deployed in the hotel throughout the day due to VVIP visits,” The Indian Express quoted Vikram Singh Shekhawat, chief security officer of the hotel, as saying. Shekhawat said the police asked for CCTV footage and it was given to them for security reasons.