CARTEL COMBAT

TELANGANA/ TRS-BJP

- Amarnath K. Menon

The battle between the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and its new national/local rival—the BJP—has been scaled up to another level altogether. Now, big names are in the crosshairs as targets and there could be hell to pay on both sides. K. Kavitha, daughter of TRS supremo and Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), has been dragged into the Delhi liquor policy scam. After figuring in an Enforcement Directorate (ED) remand report filed for businessman Amit Arora, she is now slated to be questioned by the CBI on December 11. And intriguingly, this drama is unfolding along with a parallel one: the TRS formally raking up the name of BJP national general secretary B.L. Santhosh in connection with an alleged poaching attempt on its party MLAs in the run-up to the recently concluded Munugode assembly bypoll.