A startling revelation by an anchor of a private YouTube channel is indeed shocking, if not stunning, which none of the media houses dare to publish. It is about a central premier agency that has nabbed a senior official of another agency, for trying to slow down the case against a high-profile profession. Well, I know every one of you may be curious to know. Certainly, I should not hold back, as many of you might have not seen that video go viral on social media. As a responsible journo, I did share that video with the staff of the accused whose name figures in the FIR of the much-publicized Delhi Excise policy scam.
Yes, the accused is none other than the Telangana state chief minister Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter and MLC, Kavitha. She is being accused as the ‘kingpin’ in lobbying for the Southern Liquor Syndicate.
She has been in fact, summoned by the Enforcement Directorate, twice in the past regarding the same case. Despite the facts being put in the public domain, including her stay in a star hotel in the national capital, besides other clinching material that the agencies could lay their hand on, she and her party continue to be in denial mode.
She even brazenly carried two bags filled with so-called cell phones, which in her FIR alleged to have been damaged, when she appeared before the ED on summons, waving them at the waiting media and people outside the agency’s office.
Although many thought that based on the possessed info, she might be arrested but for the reasons best known to investigating officers who chose to let her off the hook even after close to 8-10 hours grill. The reason is now in the public domain through the private YouTube channel that one assistant or Deputy Director-rank CBI officer was reportedly bribed Rs 5 crore by Kavitha if one has to believe the report, to put the case on hold.
Meanwhile, a lot of water has flown under the political carpet, as the BJP chose to effect change of their aggressive state leadership under party MP from Karimnagar Bandi Sanjay Kumar to a docile and soft-spoken Union Minister for Tourism and Culture, G Kishen Reddy. Those who joined the saffron party from the Congress like Konda Visweshwar Reddy and Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, hoping that with the possible arrest of Kavitha, the poll prospects of the BJP may blossom, were visibly disappointed, if one has to believe reports appearing in a section of the media.
Interestingly, Kavitha, who moved the apex court against the repeated summons from the ED, got a long relief as it postponed the hearing to November 26.
That means, when the state will be thick into the electioneering for the first or second-week assembly polls, any action by the ED may as well be advantageous to her Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) than the BJP, which is desperate to dislodge the nine-year rule of ‘dynastic’ rule. As of now, the state politics is quite dicey as none of the parties, including the ruling BRS, is looking all that positive. Many a political pundit of the firm opinion that though the Congress may be making the right kind of noise riding high on its landslide victory in the neighboring Karnataka, the same formula called ‘poll guarantees’ may not get replicated here in the state of Telangana. This is in the backdrop of the ruling BRS, which has a discreet understanding with the AIMIM as the minority Muslim vote banks are crucial in as many as two dozen assembly constituencies.
In Karnataka, it is no secret that the Congress could ride to power, because of the minorities voting en bloc to them, as they were annoyed with the BJP’s decision to withdraw the four percent reservations for the past two decades or so, so the insistence of ‘hijab’ to their children in educational institutions.
These two factors, worked in favor of the Congress as it is evident that it’s the Janata Dal (Secular) of former prime minister Deve Gowda and now steered by his son and former state chief minister Kuama Swamy’s, party suffering the worst poll reversals, while the BJP though could retain its vote share, but lost more than two dozen seats in the triangular contest. Since then, the JDS has rejoined the NDA fold and decided to fight the 2024 Lok Sabha polls along with the BJP, to turn the tables. As if this was not enough, the Congress, which rode to power on the ‘five guarantees is finding it difficult to implement due to paucity of funds and openly confessing that the government cannot take up any development projects for the next 2-3 years as the present state revenues just meet only the welfare schemes implementation.
Against that backdrop, one is doubtful that Kavitha may continue to evade her summons or arrest as she got ‘relief’ from the apex court. As the ED officials booked the alleged CBI officer who took a Rs 5 cr bribe, will now dare to move a petition pleading the apex court to reconsider its decision to hear the Kavitha case at an earlier date than it fixed, and help it to speed up the Delhi liquor scam case? One would like the Modi government, to first weed out the black sheep within the premier central agencies, who can be bought over, to weaken his fight against the graft.
It was their senior party MP Subramanian Swamy, who indeed had cautioned the Modi government of such corrupt officials, who were posted during the erstwhile UPA-II government continuing even in the present setup and becoming a stumbling block. Now, it’s the time for Modi to crack the whip against his officers in these premier investigative agencies first to speed up the prosecution process of all those guilty in the Opposition as well as in his party ranks.
Otherwise, it may become extremely difficult for him to win over the confidence of more people over honesty in his government’s fight against graft, which happens to be his poll promises.
Yes, to send all those guilty behind bars before the 2024 polls!
