BRS suspends MLC K Kavitha for anti-party activities

    Hyderabad, Sep 2 (PTI) A day after she triggered a storm in BRS by accusing her cousins and party leaders T Harish Rao and J Santosh Kumar of tarnishing her father KCR's image over the Kaleshwaram project, MLC K Kavitha was suspended from the BRS on Tuesday.
    BRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao has decided to suspend Kavitha with immediate effect, party general secretaries T Ravinder Rao and Soma Bharat Kumar said in a communication to the media.
    Kavitha's behaviour in recent times and her anti-party activities are hurting the BRS. The leadership has taken serious note of it, it said.
    BRS workers raised slogans against Kavitha at Husnabad near Karimnagar.
    Kavitha is scheduled to address a press conference on Wednesday where she is expected to react to her suspension.
    Several BRS leaders welcomed the suspension of Kavitha, saying KCR put the party's interests above blood relations in taking the decision.
    Former minister Satyavati Rathod said party leaders consider BRS Working President K T Rama Rao and Harish Rao as the two shoulders of KCR.
    Kavitha had earlier talked about her brother Rama Rao and now she made comments about Harish Rao on Monday.
    While Harish Rao made a strong defence of BRS during the assembly debate on Kaleshwaram project, Kavitha made critical comments about the former. This gave an impression that somebody is behind Kavitha in making such comments, Rathod said.
    Meanwhile, state Congress president B Mahesh Kumar Goud said the Congress is not concerned over Kavitha's suspension.
    "It is an internal affair of BRS. We do not respond to what happened in that party. As I said in the past, there is a dispute in KCR family about properties. That may have led to this suspension...," Goud said.
    Reacting to the Congress government announcing a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities in the Kaleshwaram project, built during the previous BRS regime, Kavitha on September 1 said some who are close to KCR have benefited in many ways by making use of his name and he was getting defamed because of their "misdeeds".
    She had alleged that Harish Rao and Santosh Kumar were responsible for KCR getting the taint of corruption in the Kaleshwaram project issue. While KCR focused on helping people, they sought to increase their wealth through clandestine dealings with contractors, she had alleged.
    She claimed that Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy was behind Harish Rao and Santosh Kumar.
    Kavitha has been making critical remarks against some party leaders for several months now without naming them.
    She has been organising political activities under the banner of 'Telangana Jagruti', a cultural organisation headed by her.
    The internal differences in BRS first came to the fore in May this year, with Kavitha taking exception to the letter she wrote to KCR about party affairs getting leaked.
    She had then said some conspiracies were taking place in the party. KCR is like a God who is surrounded by some devils, she said.
    Responding to her comments then, Kavitha's brother Rama Rao had asserted that internal party matters should be discussed within the party fora instead of speaking out in public.
    In August, Kavitha was removed as the honorary president of the BRS-affiliated trade union in the state-run coal mining company Singareni Collieries. Kavitha took exception to her replacement by a new leader.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)