K Kavitha's father, K Chandrasekhar Rao, is a key opposition leader in the centre.
K Kavitha, Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader and daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, is being questioned by the Enforcement Directorate in the Delhi liquor policy case. Manish Sisodia has been arrested in the same case.
Ms Kavitha was to meet the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday. Citing her hunger strike scheduled in Delhi on Friday seeking the introduction of the Women's Reservation Bill in parliament, she asked the ED to postpone her questioning to today, which the central agency had agreed.
Ministers from Telangana cabinet are reaching K Kavitha's residence. Her brother and Telangana minister KT Rama Rao reached last night, her mother and in-laws are also in Delhi. Several senior ministers and party leaders are heading to the capital to express solidarity with the Telangana Chief Minister's daughter. Education minister Sabitha Indra Reddy, Satyavathi Rathod, women, child welfare and tribal affairs minister, V Srinivas Goud, tourism and excise minister, Zahirabad MP BB Patil, and Rajya Sabha MP K Keshava Rao have reached her residence.
Posters have emerged in Hyderabad showing leaders from different parties that had joined BJP, and are now not facing any agency raids.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is already under the ED's custody. He was also arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for alleged corruption in framing Delhi's new liquor policy, which was later scrapped.
A key focus of the investigation into the Delhi liquor policy case is on an alleged network of middlemen, businessmen and politicians which the central agencies have called the "South Group". The ED alleged the liquor policy was tweaked to help companies of the "South Group" and Mr Sisodia diluted the policy in their favour without any consultation.
One of the "South Group" people under the radar is Ms Kavitha. Her father K Chandrasekhar Rao, popularly known as KCR, is a key opposition leader in the centre. This has led to allegations against the BJP-led centre of using central agencies to harass opposition leaders with false cases.
"In India, there's no difference between Enforcement Directorate summons and (Narendra) Modi's summons... It is a practice now wherever there's an election, before PM, the Enforcement Directorate comes. What can the opposition do? Go to people's court or the Supreme Court," Ms Kavitha told NDTV on Friday.
Her brother and Telangana minister KT Rama Rao also came to Delhi yesterday, a day before his sister's questioning by the ED. KCR yesterday told party leaders they will fight to stop the harassment by the rival BJP using central agencies, news agency PTI reported. "Our struggle will continue till BJP is ousted from (power) in the country," KCR said.
Ms Kavitha, 44, has said the BJP is trying to "intimidate my leader", referring to her father KCR, who is hoping for a third consecutive term in power in the state, where assembly elections are due in a few months.
At the Delhi court hearing on Mr Sisodia's case yesterday, his lawyer slammed the ED for considering arrest as a right without going through the due process of law. "It has become a fashion these days that the agencies take arrests as a right. It's time for the courts to come down heavily on this sense of entitlement," Mr Sisodia's lawyer Dayan Krishna said.
