Senior Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) legislator and former minister T Harish Rao has responded to the recent remarks made against him by his cousin, Kalvakuntla Kavitha, daughter of party president K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), who resigned from both the party and her MLC seat earlier this week.
Harish Rao, who returned to Hyderabad on Friday after a week-long tour of London, described his 25-year-long political journey from the Telangana statehood movement as an “open book.”
Without directly naming Kavitha, he said: “Some people have recently made allegations against me and the party. Why they made them, and who stands to benefit from them, is for them to answer. I leave those claims to their wisdom.”
He asserted that for the past decade, KCR had worked to build strong institutions in Telangana, but alleged that chief minister A Revanth Reddy was now systematically dismantling them. He suggested that the mudslinging against him and the BRS was part of this strategy.
“On one hand, farmers are struggling due to urea shortages, and on the other, cheap politics are being played. These are not good for the state. Our duty is to fulfil the aspirations of the people of Telangana,” Harish Rao said.
Earlier, in her press conference on Wednesday, Kavitha had accused Harish Rao of being the key culprit in the Kaleshwaram project scam.
“In the 2018 assembly elections, Harish disbursed additional funds to 20 candidates. Where did the money come from? Was it not from the corrupt money in the Kaleshwaram project?” she alleged.
Kavitha also claimed that in 2009, when her brother K.T. Rama Rao contested from Sircilla, Harish Rao sent ₹60 lakh through a relative to defeat him.
She further levelled accusations of irregularities in his milk business, encroachment of government land at Ranganayaka Sagar, and playing a role in shifting the Kaleshwaram project site from Tummidihatti to Medigadda.
“The chief minister accuses only KCR’s family of corruption in Kaleshwaram. How is that possible when Harish Rao executed the project as irrigation minister?” she asked.
Kavitha further alleged that Harish Rao was being supported by chief minister Revanth Reddy, claiming that conspiracies against her began after the two travelled together on a flight between Hyderabad and Delhi.
“Harish Rao has surrendered to Revanth Reddy. Let them clarify whether they travelled together or not,” she said.
She also accused Harish Rao of double standards in politics.
“He even met then chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy when the party was in trouble. He claims to be a troubleshooter, but he is a bubble shooter. He creates troubles and pretends to solve them,” Kavitha remarked.
