It's Modi summons, says KTR on ED notice to Kavitha

Hyderabad, March 9 (IANS) Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K. T. Rama Rao said on Thursday described summons issued to BRS MLC K. Kavitha by the Enforcement Directorate in Delhi excise policy case as "Modi summons".

Rama Rao, who is brother of Kavitha, slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP-led government for misusing central agencies to harass opposition leaders.

Talking to reporters, he said Kavitha would appear before the ED and cooperate with the agency unlike BJP leader B. L. Santosh, who tried to avoid questioning by the SIT of Telangana in the case of alleged attempt to poach BRS MLAs.

He also targeted the Prime Minister for indulging in crony capitalism.

He alleged that ED and CBI raids on opposition parties were aimed at eradicating democracy in the country.

KTR, who is also a cabinet minister, alleged that the central agencies have become puppets in the hands of the Modi government.

He alleged that 11 leaders of BRS have been implicated in false cases. "Why none of the BJP leaders are being summoned by the central agencies. Is everyone in the BJP a brother of Raja Harishchandra," he asked.

Alleging that the BJP-led government at the Centre has become synonymous with "unscrupulous rule" and "dishonest" investigating agencies, he said that 95 per cent of the raids by the Central agencies were on leaders of opposition parties.

He claimed that conviction was only in 23 out of 5,400 cases registered by the ED against the opposition leaders during the last nine years.

The BRS leader alleged that industrialist Gautam Adani has a link with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said though the LIC and SBI lost Rs.13 lakh crore, both the Prime Minister Modi and the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman remained tight-lipped.

KTR questioned the PM why he was silent on allegations against him on Adani. "We are saying Gautam Adani is a proxy of Narandra Modi. Will he take a lie detector test? Does he have the guts to come in front of the country," he asked.

BJP's double engine means one engine is Modi and the other engine is Adani. "Modi is a political engine, Adani is an economic engine," he said.