In a major political development, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has suspended MLC K Kavitha, the daughter of party president K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), for what it called her “recent behaviour” and “ongoing anti-party activities.” The decision was announced by the party on Tuesday, stating that her actions were “damaging to the BRS.”
The suspension came just hours after Kavitha’s explosive press conference on Monday, where she made serious allegations against her cousins, former irrigation minister T Harish Rao and former MP J Santosh Kumar. She accused them of accumulating vast wealth and orchestrating a “conspiracy” to make her father, KCR, a scapegoat in the alleged scam related to the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project. The new Congress government in Telangana recently ordered a CBI probe into the project, which was a flagship initiative of the BRS regime.
A Scapegoat and the “Anacondas of Corruption”
Kavitha launched a scathing attack on her cousins, claiming they were the true culprits behind the project’s alleged irregularities. “It was Harish Rao and Santosh Rao who handled key aspects of the project. They accumulated huge assets blinding KCR. They are the anacondas of corruption,” she alleged. She questioned the party’s future when its president, KCR, is being forced to face a CBI inquiry, stating, “When KCR is forced to face a CBI inquiry, does it even matter whether the BRS survives or not?”
The suspension follows months of escalating tensions within the party. Kavitha, who was arrested by the CBI and jailed for nearly six months in the Delhi liquor policy case, had returned to politics and had been organizing independent political activities under the banner of Telangana Jagruti. Her public accusations against senior party leaders, some of whom are known to be close to her brother and BRS working president K. T. Rama Rao, appear to have been the final straw for the BRS leadership.