‘BRS Govt did some good work, but thin line between welfare and development’: Kavitha

Former Lok Sabha MP K. Kavitha is all set to contest the next Assembly polls in Telangana due in 2028, declaring that “the rest is a technicality” when asked about the nature of her proposed new political outfit. 

Currently on a yatra across all 33 districts of Telangana, under the aegis of a non-political organisation, Telangana Jagruti, founded by her during the movement for a separate State, she told The Hindu, “I do want to contest the next assembly polls, the rest (party name, nature) of it is all technicality.”

She said that she had no contact with family members, including her father, former Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhara Rao, since her suspension. “Neither have I reached out, nor has anyone reached out to me,” she said, adding that she had been punished for “speaking the truth” about the “vested interests” that she said led to Mr. Rao’s name appearing in a CBI case related to graft. 

“Why is KCR’s name in CBI today? It is because of a few people with vested interests. I know my father, he’s fundamentally not the kind of person who would overlook such mistakes. I pointed out some of these mistakes, a reason perhaps why one of my cousins was not reappointed as a minister in the second term of our government. So, he (KCR) did try to control them, but the mishaps are huge and somebody needs to be held accountable. That is what I was flagging,” she said. 

Alleges misogyny

She also admits that a fair bit of misogyny was behind the action taken against her by her party.

“In fact, after I had been suspended, the Bharatha Rashtra Samiti (BRS) social media accounts flooded my timelines with demands that I go by my married name of Devanpalli rather than my maiden name of Kalvakuntala. This was never an issue in all the years that I was involved in the Telangana movement or the years I was in the party, when I was arrested multiple times, but now just because I stand up for myself, the entire troll army is after me. Give me a break, this is the 21st century. I am probably the only daughter suspended by her father from a political party,” she said.

She, however, struck an optimistic note, stating that all these issues go away if there is acceptance among the people, like in the case of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa or West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee. 

Focus of new outfit

As for the political programme for her new outfit, she said that while her father’s Government was good at welfare measures like the Raithu Bharose and others, people’s basic needs were not met, which would be her focus: “drinking water, roads, employment.”

“Don’t get me wrong. The BRS Government has done some good things. But there is a very thin line between welfare and development. Step out of Hyderabad and the disparity is great,” she said. 

She has also apologised, during the yatra, for some of the shortcomings of the BRS Government. “Like in the case of the martyrs for the Telangana cause, we have documented that 1200 people lost their lives during the movement; there should have been more effort put in acknowledging their sacrifices, we got to 540 such families,” she said. 

“KCR has done a lot of good things, which was a kind of a relief to people. That is why a second time also the government came with a huge number of seats. But what happened after? People slowly started realising, we are not being represented or empowered. My main agenda is to get to social justice and equity, or at least set the course for it. We could have done things differently, but again, we resorted to being a regular political party,” she said.