As Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s daughter, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC K Kavitha, is scheduled to appear before the Enforcement Directorate today for questioning in connection with the Delhi liquor policy case, party workers and supporters have gathered outside KCR’s residence in the national capital.
Earlier on Friday, Kavitha began a hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in the national capital, asking that the Women’s Reservation Bill be introduced during the current Budget session of Parliament. She requested that her interrogation be postponed until Saturday due to a planned hunger strike in Delhi on Friday.
Interestingly, the ED has detained former Delhi constable Manish Sisodia in the same case.
She arrived in the national capital on March 8, only hours after the ED summoned her for interrogation.
BRS leader KT Rama Rao arrived at his father’s mansion in the national capital on Friday.
According to reports, Kavitha would be forced to meet with Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai, who was detained on Monday night in connection with the liquor policy case.
The summons were described by the MLC as “tactics of intimidation” by the Centre against Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and the BRS, and the party stated that it will continue to fight and expose the Centre’s failures, as well as raise its voice for a brighter and better future for India.
“I would also like the ruling party at the Centre to know that these tactics of intimidation against the fight and voice of our leader, CM KCR, and against the entire BRS party will not deter us. Under the leadership of KCR Garu, we will continue to fight to expose your failures and raise voice for a brighter and better future for India,” Kavitha said in a tweet.
On March 8, the BRS came down heavily on the Centre after the ED summoned Kavitha in connection with its ongoing probe in the Delhi excise policy case, saying that the central probe agencies have become an extended arm of the BJP.
Referring to the summons as “politically motivated”, BRS leader Ravula Sridhar Reddy had said that except ED and BJP, nobody really understands the case registered in connection with the new-withdrawn new Delhi excise policy.
In its investigation, ED has come to know that Pillai is one of the key persons in the entire scam involving payments of huge kickbacks and the formation of the biggest cartel of the South Group.
Telangana MLC Kavitha, Sarath Reddy (promoter of Aurobindo Group), Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (MP, Ongole), his son Raghav Magunta, and others make up the South Group. Pillai, Abhishek Boinpalli, and Butchi Babu represented the South Group, according to the federal agency probe.
Pillai and his friends were collaborating with various people to carry out the political agreement reached between the South Group and the head of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Pillai was an accomplice in the kickbacks from the South Group and the recoupment of the same from Delhi firms, according to an ED probe.
The ED has stated that the South Group paid AAP leaders Rs 100 crore in bribes.