Coryell GOP Bans Abhiram Garapati After Video Shows Alleged Sign Removal

Abhiram Garapati was banned from attending any future Coryell County GOP‑sponsored events on Feb. 28, 2026, after surveillance footage allegedly showed the U.S. House District 31 candidate removing two opponents’ campaign signs in Gatesville. Coryell County Republican Party Chairman Norm Mitchell announced the exclusion, citing both the alleged theft and conflicting statements by Garapati during a confrontation.

The surveillance footage is timestamped Feb. 2 at 8:47 p.m. and was recorded in front of the fence that separates 2111 E. Main St. and 2107 E. Main St. in Gatesville. The video allegedly shows Garapati driving a pickup truck up to the fence, cutting down signs identified as those for Raymond Hamden and U.S. Representative John Carter, R‑Round Rock, throwing the signs into his truck, and then driving away. Multiple local outlets published a security‑camera still with the caption, “This photo from a security camera allegedly shows U.S. District 31 Republican candidate Abhiram Garapati... starting to remove a campaign sign from a fence in Gatesville.”

Mitchell told party members the ban followed a sequence of exchanges in which Garapati first denied removing the signs, then said he had replaced them, and later said he left them on the property. When Mitchell pointed out the video showed Garapati driving away with the signs, Garapati replied, “Okay.” Mitchell said, “We’re just not going to have anybody that would steal and then lie about it and get caught in a lie and then tell another lie and get caught in that lie. We don’t really want nothing to do with them.”

Garapati did not deny the removal in a Facebook post published days after the confrontation; he called the initial report by the right‑wing online outlet Current Revolt “mostly factual in my opinion” while characterizing that coverage as a “dramatized smear campaign coordinated by Carter’s office.” When contacted by The Telegram about the incident, Garapati initially claimed to be the property owner at the Gatesville location.

No arrest, criminal charge, citation, or police report is cited in the available reporting, and sources published only still images and descriptions of the footage rather than the full video file. The Coryell County Republican Party’s ban remains the primary institutional consequence recorded to date, while whether law enforcement or the affected campaigns will pursue further action has not been reported.