Congress: KCR daughter K Kavitha hails Sonia Gandhi, asks Congress to join women-quota stir | India News

HYDERABAD: Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter and MLC K Kavitha on Thursday reached out to Congress to join her protest in Delhi in support of the women’s reservation Bill. With Kavitha’s outreach tinged with praise for Sonia Gandhi, this is the first time that a leader from KCR’s inner circle has approached Congress to join her protest at Jantar Mantar on Friday.
The move is politically significant as KCR has kept the Congress at an arm’s length for the past four years. He started speaking in 2019 on the need to bring opposition parties under one umbrella to dethrone BJP at the Centre, all the while saying that both Congress and BJP had failed the country.
From Nitish Kumar to MK Stalin to Mamata Banerjee and Uddhav Thackeray, the Telangana CM has met politicians of every hue to build a coalition ahead of the 2024 elections, but avoided Congress functionaries until now.
Kavitha, who will be questioned by ED on March 11 in connection with the Delhi liquor policy scam, spoke to reporters in the national capital on Thursday. “I must thank Sonia Gandhi for making efforts to not only introduce the (women’s reservation) Bill but also convince parties to come together and pass the Bill during the Congress regime,” she said and also acknowledged the efforts taken by former BJP PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
“I have extended an invitation to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party general secretary KC Venugopal, and asked them to send the party’s representatives for the cause,” she said.
Saying that 18 parties and women’s organisations supporting the bill would join the protest at Jantar Mantar, the ex-MP said that over 500 people would go on a hunger strike, and over 6,000 had confirmed their presence.
Responding to a question on the role of Congress in the opposition, she said the grand old party must decide its role for the people and the country. “KCR garu has been making several efforts to bring together a stronger front for opposition unity and we will keep trying and ensure that this works for the people of the country,” she said.
Kavitha added that she was ready to cooperate with the ED. “But why did BJP’s BL Santosh evade the special investigating team earlier in the MLA’s poaching case in Telangana? I requested the ED to investigate me at my home in Hyderabad as was done earlier. But the authorities denied it. If this can happen to me, it can happen to others as well,” the MLC said.
She alleged that because Telangana polls are due in November or December, the investigating agencies were raiding BRS functionaries and their relatives. She said more than 100 CBI raids, 200 ED raids and over 500 income tax raids have taken place, and 500 to 600 people have been questioned by the NIA.
Meanwhile, Telangana minister and BRS working president KT Rama Rao said PM Modi was playing with fire and that he would soon realise his mistake. He was reacting to the ED sending summons to his sister Kavitha in the Delhi liquor policy case. He said Kavitha had received a “Modi summons”.
Wondering why no action had been taken against BJP leaders involved in the case relating to poaching of MLAs in Telangana, he said: “Are they brothers and sisters of Raja Harishchandra?”