Making a snide remark at Congress’ electoral debacles, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha on Thursday said that the Grand Old Party has lost the status of being a national party. Kavitha, daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said that if the Congress party wants to defeat the ruling BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, it must shed its arrogance
Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Kavitha said, “Congress has a habit of ridiculing other parties who raise voice against the ruling party as the A team or B team of the BJP.”
“The situation of Congress today across the country is that it has now been reduced to a big regional party. They are not a national party anymore. If they have the misconception that they are a national party then they must come out of it and must work to make it strong in the interest of the country and not in the interest of the Congress party,” she said.
She was responding to a question that Congress alleges the BRS was team B of the BJP despite her praise for Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
Kavitha said: “If the Congress really wants to defeat the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, its time their leaders leave their arrogance. They should come down, they should become a team player and they should work with all the parties to make sure BJP loses in the next elections. Then they would understand which is team A or B of the BJP.”
“If we would have been Team B of the BJP, we would not have been facing the ED actions. We would have been resting easily. We are not a B team and we are A team that is working hard to give an alternative to the BJP in the future,” the BRS leader said.
When asked if she knows Arun Ramachandra Pillai, she said, “Whatever questions are asked to me, will answer all.”
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Kavitha for questioning on March 9, however, citing engagements she will be appearing before it on March 11, a day after holding a protest demanding the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill.
The ED has mentioned the name of Kavitha in its charge sheet. It has also been alleged that she changed phones ten times in the last two years and was also part of the South Group in the excise policy case.
The ED had arrested Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramachandra Pillai, one of the prime suspects in the now-scrapped Delhi Excise Policy scam. In its remand report, the ED alleged that Pillai had represented Kavitha’s “benami interests” in a firm in which he’s a partner.
In its latest remand application, the ED called Pillai one of the key suspects in the case, alleging that he was “instrumental in creating a cartel to recover the money paid in kickbacks”.
The ED further alleged that Pillai was a key person to the case and that he and others created a “manufacturer-wholesale-retailers” nexus.
“One of the major objectives of the excise policy was to not allow (the) formation of any monopoly or cartel and to allow responsible players in the industry to carry out trade transparently without resorting to any proxy model,” the ED told the court.
The ED further claimed that Pillai is a partner in a firm called ‘Indospirits’, which obtained an “L-1” — a license for wholesale distribution.
According to ED, Pillai owns 32.5 percent of the firm and represented Kavitha’s “interests” in it.