Kavitha is victim of her misdeeds, slam BJP leaders

HYDERABAD: The BJP on Wednesday expressed fierce objections to the claims made by the BRS leaders, including MLC K. Kavitha, that she was being singled out by the BJP government at the Centre for advocating for women's reservations, while asserting that it had nothing to do with the ongoing investigation into the Delhi liquor scam and that any summonses or probe into the case were the sole purview of the investigating agencies.

Union minister G. Kishan Reddy, state BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar, and party’s national vice-president D.K. Aruna stated that the ED summons to Kavitha “were a result of her own actions and involvement in the liquor scam”. Kishan Reddy, speaking at a campaign meeting for the MLC Teachers’ constituency in Mahbubnagar, said the BJP never asked Kavitha to get involved in the liquor business, and that his party had no role in what the investigation agencies do in the case. “We never asked her to get into this business. We did not tell her to destroy one phone every day. The CBI and ED file cases and investigate. That is their job. What connection has BJP had with the case,” he asked.

Sanjay, addressing the International Women’s Day celebrations at the BJP headquarters in the city, slammed Kavitha for claiming that people of Telangana will never “bow down before Delhi rulers. Did Kavitha indulge in illegal liquor deals for the sake of people? Is that ill-gotten money being spent on crop loan waivers, or payment of salaries to the employees?” He said Telangana people “who never bowed their heads before anyone, now have to do so in shame thanks to “KCR’s daughter’s involvement in the liquor scam.”

Aruna remarked that it appears that the March 10 protest in the national capital planned by Kavitha was aimed to establish a rationale that the “BRS MLC may hide behind” by alleging that she was being targeted by the Narendra Modi government for taking up the subject of women's reservation.

Nizamabad MP Dharmapuri Arvind said Kavitha “after losing to BJP in the 2019 general elections, and then becoming MLC in ‘nepotism quota’ is now emerging as a key conspirator in the scam. Her sudden epiphany to fight for the Women's Reservation Bill is just a futile attempt to divert people’s attention.” While Huzurabad MLA Etala Rajender said the law will take its own course of action, and recalled how the Chief Minister had said several times that he will not spare even members of his family if they were caught breaking the law, senior party leader Gudur Narayana Reddy said Kavitha has “brought disrepute to women in Telangana”. “Instead of fighting for eradication of rampant liquor consumption in the state, Kavitha got involved in the liquor scam,” he said, pointing out that due to burgeoning belt wine shops, “thousands of women were becoming widows” every year in the state.