K Kavitha resigned from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi and stepped down as a member of the Telangana Legislative Council on Wednesday, a day after she was suspended by the party.

On Tuesday, the BRS said that Kavitha was suspended by her father and party chief K Chandrashekar Rao for alleged anti-party activities.

The action had come a day after she accused her cousins, former minister T Harish Rao and ex-MP J Santosh Rao, of amassing assets while making K Chandrashekar Rao a “scapegoat” in the alleged Kaleshwaram project scam.

On Wednesday, addressing a press conference in Hyderabad, Kavitha said that she would obey the party’s decision. She added that her father was forced to take a harsh decision against her due to pressure from Harish Rao and Santosh Rao, The Hindu reported.

She said that she would not join any other political party.

On Tuesday, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy announced in the Assembly that the probe into the alleged irregularities in the construction of the lift irrigation project will be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The Congress-majority House passed a motion in its favour.

The BRS was in power in Telangana when the project was commissioned and executed.

Later in the day, Kavitha told reporters: “When a great leader like KCR [K Chandrasekhar Rao] is forced to face a CBI inquiry, does it even matter whether the BRS survives or not?”

She also accused Harish Rao, a former irrigation minister, and Santosh Rao of being responsible for irregularities in the project.

“KCR is being scapegoated,” Kavitha claimed. “It was Harish Rao and Santosh Rao who handled key aspects of the project. They accumulated huge assets blinding KCR. They are the anacondas of corruption.”

She further claimed that a contractor named Megha Krishna Reddy was also involved in the alleged irregularities.

Harish Rao was removed as the irrigation minister during the second term of the BRS due to his alleged role in the Kaleshwaram irregularities, she claimed, adding that he and Santosh Rao also spread “false propaganda” against her on social media.

Speaking in the Assembly, Reddy said that several central and state agencies were involved in the project.

He also accused BRS leaders, including K Chandrashekar Rao, of amassing wealth “at the expense of the people of Telangana”.

The scam

The Kaleshwaram project on the Godavari is a multi-stage lift irrigation project, work for which was completed in 2019. The project covers about 500 km in 13 districts, with a canal network of 1,800 km.

In October 2023, a pillar of the Medigadda Barrage sank, which led to flooding. Subsequently, a team from the National Dam Safety Authority examined the sunken pillar and held an appraisal meeting with Larsen and Toubro Limited, the company executing the project.

In February 2024, the Congress-led Telangana government asked the dam safety authority to carry out a “thorough inspection of the design and construction of the three barrages” of the project.

On April 29, the state government announced that the National Dam Safety Authority had found a “lack of proper geo-technical investigations, design deficiencies, construction defects, failure of modelling studies, structural distress, absence of robust quality control, operation and maintenance failures, [and that] dam safety aspects [had been] ignored”, The Indian Express reported.

A month earlier, the PC Ghose Commission was constituted to investigate the alleged irregularities in planning, design, construction, quality control, operation and maintenance of Medigadda, Annaram and Sundilla Barrages of the project, The News Minute reported.

The one-man commission submitted its report to the state government on July 31.

On Sunday, the report was tabled in the Assembly.

The report held K Chandrashekar Rao responsible for what it said was “rampant procedural and financial irregularities, lack of proper planning, design flaws, construction defects and a complete absence of effective operation and maintenance”, The Indian Express reported.

It claimed that the decision to construct barrages at Medigadda, Annaram and Sudilla was the “sole and individual decision” of the BRS chief and Harish Rao.

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