The Telangana opposition party, BRS, is embroiled in a significant internal crisis. On Tuesday, K. Kavitha, the daughter of party founder K. Chandrashekhara Rao, was suspended for “anti-party activities.”
The Congress, the ruling party, and the BJP, the other key opposition party, see this as a mere family matter. They have, however, seized the opportunity presented by Kavitha’s corruption allegations against her cousins, who are senior BRS leaders, to criticize KCR and his party over the issue of corruption. Kavitha’s repeated allegations against her cousins, former irrigation minister T. Harish Rao and former MP J. Santosh Rao, were the final factor leading to her suspension, as announced by BRS general secretary, T. Ravinder Rao.
This led to immediate protests from supporters of Telangana Jagruti, a social organization founded by Kavitha. Kavitha accused her cousins of accumulating vast assets and involving her father, KCR, in the alleged Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project scandal. Her supporters claimed she was treated unjustly.
The BRS’s opponents dismissed the developments as mere political maneuvering. N. Ramchander Rao, the BJP’s Telangana state president, used her allegations to target the former CM and his party, suggesting that the accusations revealed the extent of corruption during the BRS government’s tenure and the family disputes arising from the distribution of their illicit wealth. Mahesh Kumar Goud, president of the Telangana Congress unit, stated that the suspension of Kavitha was a staged event, part of a broader scheme involving KCR’s family, which he accused of public property looting.
Kavitha had previously alleged that former ministers Harish and Santosh were involved in corruption related to the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation project, which is currently under CBI investigation. She accused them of amassing substantial wealth, manipulating KCR in the process. Following her allegations, the Telangana government initiated a CBI probe and set up a judicial commission to investigate the alleged irregularities.