K Kavitha: Techie, darling daughter, cultural icon, now Tihar jail inmate

On October 2, 2016, Kalvakuntla Kavitha, daughter of then Chief Minister of Telangana, K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), participated in a Bathukamma (Goddess of womanhood) festival celebrations in London. She was promoting the traditional flower festival as the state identity among the Telangana diaspora.

The London visit was part of a nine-nation European tour. A day earlier, she took part in similar celebrations in the UAE. It was the height of her popularity.

Bathukamma is a nine-day colourful floral festival celebrated by the women of Telangana. It coincides with Navaratri of Dasara.

Featuring a cone-shaped pile of exotic flowers arranged in concentric rings, the Bathukamma holds a diya (lamp) at the peak. Women dance around the Bathukamma.

Flower diplomacy

Kavitha chose the floral festival as a medium to mobilise the support of women and youth to the Telangana movement in 2006, after her return to India from the US. She floated a cultural organisation called Telangana Jagruthi (TJ) for this.

Decrying Andhra Pradesh's cultural domination, Kavitha, a former techie and mother of two sons, campaigned for cultural revival through Bathukamma.

The status of being the daughter of protagonist of Telangana movement and making an ostensible sacrifice leaving behind a comfortable US life for the sake of statehood movement made her a darling of the womenfolk.

Telangana icon

The youth of Jagruthi became a cultural army staging protests in front of residences of prominent Andhra leaders. She gave a call ‘Quit Andhra’ in 2011. At the drop of the hat the army would spring from nowhere to surround Andhra leaders and their properties, reminding them of the Shiv Sainiks of Maharashtra. She declared Andhra’s have no right to hold meetings on Telangana soil. With flowers in one hand and militancy in the other, Kavitha became a major source of worry for Andhra businessmen.

Her belligerence attracted youth in large numbers and transformed TJ into a global organisation with units in as many as 30 countries.

Her oratorical skills coupled with fluency in English and Urdu made her a dominant female voice of the Telangana movement.

KCR’s daughter

By the time Telangana state was carved out in 2014, she was acknowledged as one of the most influential personalities in the state after her father KCR, her brother Kalvakuntla Taraka Ramarao, and her brother-in-law, Thanneeru Harish Rao.

Her father’s strategy to sideline all important leaders of the movement after the formation of the state made the family members the only faces of Telangana politics, and Kavitha the sole woman representative.

As Congress senior leader Dr Mallu Ravi put it, the Telangana state had become a prisoner of the family. “No other leader was allowed to grow in the party. No leader was allowed to talk. Both political and governmental activities are controlled by the foursome,” Ravi said.

Prof Kodandaram, the leader of the Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) which led the movement for statehood, said a favourable atmosphere was created for her to become the sole woman leader of Telangana by KCR.

Ascent and descent

Riding on the euphoria of the statehood wave, Kavitha won the Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat in 2014 by 1.67 lakh votes. As an MP she intensified her activities with state patronage. To ensure that there was no rival to her in politics, KCR did not induct any woman into the cabinet.

The period between 2014 and 2019 was a glorious chapter in her political career. While she was adjudged the best MP in parliament, she was seen as the most influential in Delhi. Many started approaching her for favours.

But her popularity in the Nizamabad constituency suffered a setback due to her inaccessibility to people and her inability to fulfil the tall promises she had made to the people such as reopening of the Nizam Sugars and setting up of the Turmeric Board at Nizamabad.

She lost the 2019 Lok Sabha election to the BJP by about 70,000 votes. “Celebrity Kavitha’s minimal interaction with local people lowered her stature in the eyes of the public, especially farmers,” a Nizamabad journalist remarked.

Angry farmers

Peeved at her attitude, 177 farmers filed nominations in 2019 only to defeat her. "The rebellion of farmers was just the tip of the iceberg of pent-up ire in the constituency," the journalist said.

In between, she diversified the activities of TJ into skill development with huge Central assistance. Sometime back, Congress leaders demanded a probe into the alleged swindling of Skill Development funds by TJ.

After the election defeat, Kavitha disappeared from public life till she was elected as an MLC in 2020 in a byelection.

Liquor scam

But the Delhi liquor policy scam in 2021 marred her political career.

She tried every trick of the trade to repair her beaten reputation. She raised the issue of women’s reservation and sat on Deeksha in Delhi. She participated in the Batukamma celebration with renewed vigour.

Nothing helped her regain the lost ground. She converted the Telangana Jagruthi into Bharath Jagruthi when her father renamed the Telangana Rashtra Samiti as the Bharata Rashtra Samiti in 2022.

The BRS candidates who she campaigned for lost in the 2023 Assembly elections. In disgust she scrapped all the committees of Bharata Jagruthi.

Lonely figure

The defeat of BRS in the state made her more vulnerable which eventually led to her arrest by the ED on money laundering charges on March 15.

Madhu Yaski Goud, Kavitha’s nearest rival in 2014 Lok Sabha election, said the liquor policy scam clearly exposed how she lobbied for businessmen of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh under the cover of Bathukamma floral festival.

Despite her political career spanning 17 years and the global network of Telangana Jagruthi behind, her fans did not raise a voice in protest when the ED took the daughter of KCR into custody.

No word of protest was uttered by any former Bharat Jagruthi member. Nor was there any statement by the overseas branches of her organisation. Even her own father maintained an intriguing silence.