Speculations are rife in the Delhi media that Bharat Rashtra Samithi legislator and Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha might be arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on Monday in connection with the alleged Delhi liquor policy scam.
Kavitha appeared before the ED authorities in New Delhi for the second round of questioning in the Delhi excise policy linked money laundering case.
Interestingly, the Delhi high court on Monday rejected the bail petition of Abhishek Boinpally, said to be a close relative of Kavitha, in the same case.
The ED authorities are grilling Kavitha, equipped with concrete evidence they had gathered in the case.
They are expected to bring other accused like Arun Ramachandra Pillai and Abhishek Boinpally into the same room to question her.
Kavitha was first questioned in the case on March 11 following which she was summoned again on March 16.
She, however, skipped the deposition on March 16 citing her pending plea for relief against the ED action in the case.
During the nine hours she spent at the ED office on March 11, Kavitha is understood to have been confronted with the statements made by Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramachandran Pillai, an arrested accused in the case who allegedly shares close ties with her, apart from those of few others involved in the case.
Kavitha has asserted that she had done nothing wrong and alleged that the BJP-led Centre was “using” the ED as the saffron party could not gain a “backdoor entry” in Telangana.
Pillai, the ED had said, “represented the South Group”, 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.
The “South Group”, according to the ED, comprises Sarath Reddy (promoter of Aurobindo Pharma), Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (YSR Congress MP from Ongole Lok Sabha seat in Andhra Pradesh), his son Raghav Magunta, Kavitha and others.
The ED also alleged in Pillai’s remand papers that he “represented the benami investments” of Kavitha in the case.