If Kavitha is arrested, it will create a sympathy for party, say BRS leaders

NEW DELHI: As Telangana’s ruling party leader K. Kavitha, who is also the daughter of the state chief minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, is facing probe from central agencies. Leaders from Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) say that her investigation will create a sympathy wave in favour of the party, resulting in better electoral prospects in the Assembly polls later this year.
Unlike the political crisis in AAP, where the party’s most prominent leader after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, himself, Manish Sisodia, is incarcerated in the same scam, BRS leaders say the developments will have no impact for the party on the electoral front. A BRS functionary said, “If she gets jailed once and then given bail immediately, it will give the BRS an opportunity to hit out at the BJP saying they didn’t even spare a woman.”
The CBI is currently probing the BRS leader in connection with the Delhi liquor scam and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has named her in its charge-sheet in the case. A political analyst in the state said, “Yes definitely there will be a sympathy wave for BRS, but at the same time, Kavita has other ED cases against her which the public knows. She has been a Member Parliament (Lok Sabha) contestant from Nizambad constituency in 2014. She won contesting for the first time in 2014, but later lost in 2019 because there were major corruption allegations against her at that point in time.”
He added, “With this particular case of ED, there will be a narrative building by the BRS that it is the pure case of political vendetta. The party will say that BJP is deliberately trying to corner the party with such cases. However, it will not impact people of her constituency where people still know that her appetite for riches is not lost.”
The Member of Legislative Council (MLC) from Nizamabad has been growing in her popularity outside the Telangana. The talk among leaders is that Kavitha may get the post of “national general secretary” with the responsibility to coordinate for other states where the party is willing to set up its cadre. Moreover, BRS has developed a stronger political ties with AAP in the recent past. Yet, political analysts believe it is just a perception battle that the BRS is getting into at the national scenario “because there will be no electoral benefit from AAP even if AAP contests in Telangana in an alliance with BRS, and if BRS contests in Delhi again, there will be no electoral benefit”, a political analyst tracing national political activities said.
He added, “K. Chandrashekhar Rao is a full-time politician and he knows the ways of reaching out to the electorate and it is only a matter of time before things play out. His national ambition is just a political optics. He wants to be seen as the competitor of the country’s Prime Minister Modi which will give more mileage to him as a political figure in the state.”