Hyderabad: The BRS on Tuesday suspended its legislative council member and party supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter K Kavitha from the party for what it termed as her “recent attitude and anti-party activities”.The move came a day after she openly attacked senior leaders and KCR’s nephews, former minister Harish Rao and former Rajya Sabha MP Joginapally Santosh Kumar, of corruption in the Kaleshwaram lift irrigation scheme (KLIS). Kavitha had spoken to reporters on Monday and, for the first time, named the top leaders immediately after the Telangana govt had decided to hand over the investigation into damages to the KLIS barrages to CBI.The decision to suspend Kavitha was conveyed to her by Soma Bharat Kumar, the party’s general secretary, who oversees disciplinary matters. Interestingly, it was Bharat who had represented her in court when she was jailed along with AAP leaders for her alleged involvement in the Delhi liquor scam.The suspension letter did not provide any additional details on the reasons behind the action. It also did not give a time frame from the suspension. Speculation was rife that Kavitha may be expelled from the party after KCR and other top leaders held elaborate meetings at his farmhouse for two days. But in the end, the party decided to suspend her for an indefinite period.Kavitha’s troubles with the party became public in May after a letter she wrote to her father outlining her concerns about the party’s functioning was leaked to reporters. At the time she had accused “ghosts haunting the party” of deliberately disclosing her private correspondence. More recently, she was removed from her position as the president of the Telangana Boggu Gani Karmikula Sangham, a Singareni coal miners’ union associated with the BRS.Although none of her family members, including her brother and former minister KT Rama Rao, spoke on the suspension, BRS women leaders, including former minister Satyavati Rathod, told reporters that Kavitha’s imminent exit from the party would not hurt them politically. They added that KCR did not see any difference between his family and party rank and file.For the past few months, Kavitha had blamed the “ghosts that surround KCR” for the growing rift between her and the party. But after returning from an overseas trip on Monday, Kavitha accused Harish and Santosh of being responsible for the corruption charges against the previous BRS government, asserting that had it not been for the duo, the Justice (retd) P C Ghosh Commission of Inquiry would have found no fault with KCR while inquiring into KLIS.Kavitha was jailed in the alleged Delhi liquor scam along with AAP leaders and arrested on April 11, 2024. She was released in late Aug. Since her release, she had been asserting her independence more vigorously and even reactivated her cultural organisation, Telangana Jagruti, which was at the forefront of the agitation for a separate Telangana state.BOXSpeculation over Council membershipSources close to Kavitha say she would soon decide on whether to remain a legislative council member or resign from her membership after being suspended from BRS. Having served as a Lok Sabha MP from 2014 to 2019 and as an MLC from October 2020 to January 2022, she was re-elected to the Council in 2022, securing a term that lasts until Jan 2028. There is growing speculation that she may even consider launching a new party. Kavitha faced an unexpected defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Nizamabad after more than 170 turmeric farmers had protested by contesting as independent candidates against her, demanding the establishment of a national turmeric board in the region.
