18 parties on hunger strike today: KCR's daughter Kavitha

New Delhi/Hyderabad: Political tempers are set to rise in the next two days with 'women of the moment' K Kavitha holding a dharna at Jantar Mantar, demanding introduction and passing of the Women's Reservation Bill during the present session of Parliament. BJP is also planning to hold counter dharna at Delhi and Hyderabad.

The BRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao who is closely monitoring the developments wants to make the issue of ED questioning Kavitha into a major political issue alleging that BJP was resorting to intimidation and harassment of those who were opposed to the saffron party while it was keeping silent in regard to the activities of Adani or BJP MLA in Karnataka from whose house Rs 8 crore was seized. The BRS feels that this was a good opportunity to take Modi head on as other political parties like Congress have miserably failed.

Meanwhile, ahead of the Jantar Mantar, Kavitha at a Press conference in Delhi asked Modi to stop torturing people like her and instead focus on reducing prices, give more subsidies and jobs.

She said, BJP always used backdoor entry in nine states. As they failed to do same in Telangana, they were using ED now, "but we are not afraid." We will face Enforcement Directorate, we have not done anything wrong...she added.

It may be mentioned that Kavitha has been summoned by the ED in connection with a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policy.

Kavitha said that a hunger strike will be held in the national capital on March 10 and that 18 political parties have said that they will participate in the protest launched to seek introduction of the Women's Reservation Bill in the current session of Parliament.

"We released a poster on March 2 about the hunger strike in Delhi over the Women's Reservation Bill. 18 parties confirmed their participation...ED summoned me on March 9. I requested for March 16 but don't know what haste they're in, so I agreed for March 11."

Kavitha said she "requested" Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and general secretary K.C. Venugopal to send a representation to her protest for the Women's Reservation Bill, in Delhi on Friday. Kavitha also praised former Congress president Sonia Gandhi for having backed the Bill despite leading a coalition government in Delhi.

In Hyderabad, Minister for IT K T Rama Rao launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP-led Centre, accusing it of crony capitalism and "misusing" agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate to harass opposition leaders.

Rama Rao, alleged that the central agencies have become puppets in the hands of the Modi government and claimed that several BRS leaders have been targeted by the Centre.

The summons issued by the ED to his sister Kavitha are "not ED summons but Modi summons", he said. KTR alleged that the NDA government has become synonymous with "unscrupulous rule" and "dishonest investigation agencies." The BRS leader alleged that industrialist Gautam Adani has a link to Prime Minister Modi. He said PM and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman should explain why they are silent even though Rs 13 lakh crore of LIC and SBI is lost.