A search was carried out at the offices of Twitter India by the Delhi Police's Special Cell on May 24, in connection to the preliminary enquiry into the "Congress toolkit" case.

The search was being conducted at the offices of Twitter in Delhi and Gurugram, reports said, adding that officials of the social media company were also being questioned in relation to the alleged toolkit.

The Delhi Police had on May 21 sent a notice to Twitter India Managing Director Manish Maheshwari, asking him to "remain present in the office" for the purpose of investigation with "all relevant documents".

The controversy over the alleged toolkit erupted after senior leaders of the Centre-ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had, on May 18, shared a document which suggested a plot to tarnish the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his handling of COVID-19. The document, they alleged, was released by the rival Congress party.

The Congress subsequently wrote to Twitter, claiming that the document was "fake" and created on a "forged letterhead" of the party's research department. The opposition party demanded the suspension of the accounts of top BJP leaders including party chief JP Nadda and Union Minister Smriti Irani for allegedly spreading misinformation.

The party also registered police complaints against BJP leaders in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh for allegedly creating and sharing a forged document to defame the Congress.

Shortly after Congress' complaint, Twitter flagged the toolkit-related tweets of BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra as "manipulated media".

The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had reportedly written to Twitter on May 21, marking its disapproval over the "prejudged, prejudiced" decision to flag the tweets in connection to the toolkit as 'manipulated media'.

"The government has asked Twitter to remove the tags affixed prejudicially to certain tweets in recent days in the interests of fairness and equity... Investigation will determine the veracity of the content, not Twitter," a MeitY source was reported as saying.

The Delhi Police, earlier on May 24, issued a notice to Twitter asking the company to explain the reason behind labelling Patra's tweet as 'manipulated media', news agency ANI had reported.

Meanwhile, the police in Chhattisgarh registered an FIR against Patra and former state chief minister Raman Singh in connection to the toolkit case on May 23. The Raipur Police began investigating them after a complaint of forgery was registered by the National Students' Union of India - Congress' student wing - on May 18.