BRS plans how to corner BJP

New Delhi: What did the Enforcement Directorate ask Kavitha? What will happen on March 16 when she will again appear before them? Will she come out unscathed or will she be arrested? This is the big question before the BRS leaders.

It is learnt that on Saturday a five-member team led by a Joint Director women Deputy Director and three others questioned her. ED focussed their discussion on her links with Ramachandra Pillai and other AAP leaders. They also tried to find out what happened at the ITC hotel in Hyderabad.

It is being said that the method of confrontation interrogation was adopted wherein, she was questioned along with AAP leader Manish Sisodia on her links with the South Group, how many times she had visited Delhi and whom all did she meet during those visits. They are also said to have asked her about how many phones she used and why 10 phones were changed and allegedly destroyed.

Halfway through the questioning, the ED asked her to hand over her present mobile phone. When she said she left it at home, they sent the security personnel to her house and are said to have seized it.

The probe agency reportedly confronted the 44-year-old daughter of KCR regarding the money laundering and alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the Delhi excise policy.

As the speculations of her possible arrest were high, BRS leaders KT Rama Rao, Harish Rao, Nama Nageswara Rao and others held consultations with AAP leaders and it was planned to hold massive protests both in Delhi and across Telangana. Now that she got relief till March 16, the party leadership would be working out an action plan in case her arrest became inevitable. How to gain sympathy and how to take on the BJP will be finalised in the next two days' time.

The BRS wants to make this a big issue. It would take the line that since Telangana is being projected as a happening state and a kind of model state for the country, the BJP was getting nervous about getting exposed of its failures and hence was resorting to such intimidatory tactics. Earlier during the day in Delhi, there was heavy police presence along with central paramilitary forces. They had barricaded the ED office. Only Kavitha was allowed inside. The agency had earlier said the South Group was an alleged liquor cartel linked to Kavitha and others that paid kickbacks amounting to about Rs 100 crore to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to gain a larger share of the market in the national capital under the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy for 2020-21.