ED summons KCR's daughter Kavitha in excise case

The Enforcement Directorate has summoned Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's daughter K Kavitha in connection with a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policy, officials said on Wednesday.

Kavitha, 44, a Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) MLC, has been asked to depose on March 9 before the federal agency in the national capital.

She has been called so that she can be confronted with Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai, an alleged frontman of the 'south group', who was arrested by the ED on Monday.

The ED had earlier said that Pillai 'represented the south group', an alleged liquor cartel linked to Kavitha and others.

The 'south group', according to the agency, 'comprises' Sarath Reddy (promoter of Aurobindo Pharma), Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress MP from Ongole Lok Sabha seat), Kavitha and others.

Kavitha had said she would be in Delhi for holding a one-day hunger strike at the Jantar Mantar on March 10 to seek the introduction of the Women's Reservation Bill in the upcoming session of Parliament.

The BRS leader has been questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in this case earlier.

It is alleged that the Delhi government's excise policy for 2021-22 to grant licences to liquor traders allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers, who had allegedly paid bribes for it, a charge strongly refuted by the ruling Aam Aadmi Party in New Delhi.

The policy was later scrapped and the Delhi Lt Governor had recommended a CBI probe following which the ED registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).