K Kavitha, Bharat Rashtra Samithi or BRS MLC and the daughter of Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, will be questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday in connection to the Delhi liquor policy case. Her party workers and supporters have gathered outside the residence of KCR in the national capital.
Earlier on Friday, Kavitha launched a hunger strike at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar in the national capital along with 12 opposition parties demanding the introduction of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the current Budget session of Parliament.
K Kavitha had arrived in New Delhi on March 8, hours after the ED issued a summons for questioning. BRS leader KT Rama Rao on Friday also arrived at the residence of his father in New Delhi.
News agency ANI reported that Kavitha will be made to sit face-to-face with Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai, who was arrested in connection with the liquor policy case on Monday night.
Kavitha termed the summons as “tactics of intimidation” by the Centre against KCR and the BRS, adding that the party will continue to fight and expose the Centre’s failures and will raise its voice for a brighter and better future for India.
On March 8, the BRS slammed the Centre after the ED summoned Kavitha, saying that the central probe agencies have become an extended arm of the BJP.
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.
South Group comprises Kavitha, Sarath Reddy (promoter of Aurobindo Group), Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (MP, Ongole), his son Raghav Magunta, and others. The South Group was being represented by Pillai, Abhishek Boinpalli and Butchi Babu, the federal agency investigation has revealed.
Pillai along with his associates was coordinating with various persons to execute the political understanding between the South Group and a leader of Aam Aadmi Party Pillai has been an accomplice and was involved in the kickbacks from the South Group and the recoupment of the same from the businesses in Delhi, the ED investigation reveals.
Kavitha, who is a member of the Telangana Legislative Council, was questioned by the CBI in the same case in December last year.
The excise policy was passed by Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi Cabinet in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021.
AAP leader Manish Sisodia has been arrested by the ED in the same case.
