Hyderabad: The discharge of former Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s daughter K. Kavitha by a special court in the Delhi liquor policy case has kicked off a tussle between her and her elder brother K.T. Rama Rao, who is working president of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).Rama Rao took to X to congratulate Kavitha immediately after the judgment was delivered by the court on Friday (February 27), although a portion of his post seemed to blame his sister as the cause for the party’s loss of power in Telangana in December 2023.He wrote: “The AAP Govt led by Kejriwal was brought down in the name of the so-called liquor scam, and the political casualty of that narrative was the Bharat Rashtra Samithi in both the Assembly and Parliament elections.“Kavitha Garu got justice in court today and in the same manner, every case registered against our leaders will be conclusively exposed as false, politically motivated and fabricated,” Rama Rao continued.With a rider that this was what she understood from Rama Rao’s remarks, Kavitha took strong exception to her brother claiming that the BRS lost power in the state on account of the case against her.She retorted: “Dear brother, you are living in denial mode. Accept the facts.” The party lost the elections because of a flawed housing scheme for the poor, a lack of jobs for unemployed youth, the misallotment of tickets within the party and, most importantly, the arrogance of its top leadership, she charged.Kavitha added that she was arrested after the party’s debacle in the 2023 assembly elections, whereas on the other hand the then-Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was arrested before assembly elections in that state. So how did the case influence the BRS’s election performance, she asked while giving sound bytes to the media.“Was the case not aimed at the party when it was booked against me? Didn’t I go to jail for the party? But where did the party support me?” Kavitha asked. It was admitted by their father Chandrashekar Rao that the case was aimed at the party, but in spite of knowing this Rama Rao posted remarks in a manner that hurt her, she said.She asked her father and her brother why they did not hold a press conference to condemn her arrest on that day in March 2024. Why didn’t the BRS support her when she was in bad times, she asked.However, Chandrashekar Rao had replied to a question at a press conference months later that she would come out as a “spotless jewel” as the case was false and politically motivated.The former MLC said the BRS was trying to turn the court judgment to its favour and shift the blame of its election loss to her. “The party is trying to tie the blame on my neck.”“Will a party that achieved statehood for Telangana lose an election on account of an individual? Is that party so weak?” she asked.Kavitha said the verdict was a divine blessing to her ahead of the launch of her party set to take place two months later. She added that the issue of the liquor ‘scam’ never stopped her from continuing her public life.After her release from Tihar jail in Delhi on August 27, 2024, Kavitha was out of action for a few months but returned to active politics early last year against her parents’ wishes. She toured several districts without the support of party workers. A controversial letter that she wrote to her father alleging wrongdoing in the party, which was leaked to the media, led to her suspension some five months ago.Kavitha then resigned from the party and from membership of the legislative council to carry on her activities under the banner of the ‘Telangana Jagruthi’ social organisation that she had long ago floated to support the BRS in certain social themes, particularly the celebration of Telangana’s festivals.Her suspension from the party led to cracks within the family as she stopped meeting her father and her brother. She had said earlier that her mother alone was the link to her paternal family.When the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had arrested Kavitha, the agency identified her as a key link between a “South Group” that it said tried to corner the liquor trade in Delhi and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leadership that ruled the government in the capital.The agency claimed that a conspiracy was hatched wherein liquor businessmen through Kavitha’s alleged facilitation had agreed to pay Rs 100 crore as a kickback to the AAP in exchange for benefits under the liquor policy framed by the government.However, her lawyers argued in court that her implication in the case was “wholly unwarranted and appears to be premised more upon her public and political profile than any cogent material connecting her with the alleged offences”.Records did not disclose her “participation in any meeting alleged to have been convened for an unlawful purpose”, they submitted. “No contemporaneous document, travel record, electronic communication or independent witness is shown to place her at any such conspiratorial discussion as projected by the investigating agency,” they argued.Kavitha was arrested on March 15, 2024, by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and shifted to Tihar jail, where the CBI also stepped in to question her invoking provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and sections of the Indian Penal Code.It was the CBI that initially filed an FIR in the case, where it was alleged that a payment of Rs 100 crore involving Kavitha and members of her ‘South Group’ ‘cartel’ were made to AAP leaders as kickbacks in exchange for favours in the framing and implementation of the capital’s excise policy for 2021-22.The two agencies had identified Kavitha as a key conspirator in the case along with other members of the ‘South Group’.The ED had identified Kavitha as cornering stakes in Indospirit, a leading distributor of alcoholic beverages, without substantial investment in the company.Kavitha’s lawyer Nitesh Rana noted that the court on Friday apart from sweepingly rejecting the case also objected to the prosecution’s use of the term ‘South Group’.Former BRS MP B. Vinod Kumar told The Wire that it was the stand of the party from day one that the case would not stand legal scrutiny as there was no prima facie evidence. The case was booked against Kavitha as part of the BJP’s vindictive politics, he said.Social activist and veteran journalist Pasham Yadagiri however said the judgment would not impact politics in a big way as Kavitha ‘lacked credibility’.