By Sushil Kutty
Did Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K Kavitha make a mistake by missing her March 16 date with the Enforcement Directorate? Till as long as the ED was summoning Kavitha and subjecting her to long hours of relentless questioning, eight to nine hours per session at least, the perception battle was in her, and in the favour of the opposition parties; that the Modi government was misusing central investigative agencies to take forward the BJP’s political agenda.
But with K Kavitha refusing to show up at the ED office, the BJP has reason to be satisfied; and gain an upper hand. And along with the Modi government, also reason to label Kavitha a proclaimed offender of sorts if she continued to elude the ED’s summons. Of course, with all the collateral drama that comes with it. K. Kavitha, like Delhi’s ex-Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, is a prized catch for the CBI and ED as they go about clearing the route to 2024 for the BJP.
Kavitha’s volte face has turned the tables on her! One would have thought a young party with a relatively younger set of leaders, compared to the BJP and the Congress, would have gone about things in a different manner and not given the BJP and the Modi government reason to blurt out “Didn’t we say so?” with or without a sly wink.
And “setback to heath” is a flimsy excuse. More a lie than honest truth. Not even bona fide BRS cadres in Telangana would send Kavitha “Get Well Soon” cards. The diagnosis would be that “Kavitha is lying”. Better sense would have been to take the summons on the chin, and whatever else that comes with it as “good cholesterol.”
Kavitha’s third round of ED questioning was expected to throw up a breakthrough for the ED, or complete exoneration for Kavitha who at present is like Sisodia an accused in the Delhi Liquor Excise Policy case. If talk is to be believed, the decks are stacked against Kavitha and she might end up in a cell next to that of Sisodia and Satyender Jain in the Tihar. Earlier, the Supreme Court had refused to intervene in the Kavitha-ED to and fro.
The point is nobody outsider, definitely not a journalist, can be a fly on the wall of an ED or a CBI “questioning session”. Over the years a long list of individuals have undergone such type of “harassment” but to date none in the list have ever offered to tell the story of the harassment! A full disclosure!
The line of questioning of an accused will differ from case to case, but how many repetitions of the same questions, again and again, are made is something people would like to know? Does not this line of questioning amount to harassment, if not outright torture? Again the public would want to know.
KCR’s daughter K Kavitha must have had enough of the ED questioning and was willing to defy the ED diktat. She sent a BRS leader to deliver her message, along with some documents, to the ED. She was also smarting from her previous visit to the ED when she was compelled to send somebody to retrieve her smartphone from “home”, left there on purpose, definitely.
Clearly, at one level, it’s a game for both the parties; a high-stakes game, loaded with risks. Are the accused/suspects who are questioned asked to sign a version of the official secrets act that bars them from disclosing the line, and the tone and tenor of the questioning? Otherwise, why hasn’t there been any story on the marathon questioning sessions of the ED and the CBI in any media?
It is believed that the “nine hours” of questioning Kavitha had to undergo on her last visit to the ED office firmed up her resolve not to present herself before the ED for yet another round of endless questioning! She had had enough and was willing to buck the trend and make a break.
However, she has no clue how the ED will react and respond. This amounted to a version of Mutiny on the Bounty. Sending a BRS general secretary to the ED to tell she was “unwell” wouldn’t suffice. What was her legal team thinking; or was it evening thinking? What the ED does next even the mighty KCR would not know. One thing is sure, make an appearance she will have to. Que sera, que sera…what will be, will be! There will be no escaping the inevitable, not even for the daughter of KCR. (IPA Service)
