Central probe agencies are puppets in Modi’s hands: Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao

“The real liquor scam took place in Gujarat, a dry state, when scores of people died after consuming illicit liquor in the past,” the BRS working president said said in Hyderabad, even as his sister took on the BJP at a press conference in the national capital.

Related: Summoned by ED, BRS MLC K Kavitha says will go, but on 11 March

‘Not afraid of ED’

The BRS leader said that neither Kavitha nor his party would buckle and submit to the BJP, even if intense pressure is put on them.

The BRS leaders are not afraid of the ED and they would fearlessly appear and cooperate with it, unlike those in the BJP.

“When Telangana SIT issued notices to BJP general secretary BL Santhosh to appear before it for his role in luring BRS MLAs into the saffron party, he hid somewhere. We are not like Santhosh. We can face any agency,” he said.

Trying to turn the tables on the BJP, Rama Rao recounted instances of the BJP welcoming tainted leaders from other parties like Sujana Chowdary, who was allegedly linked to a multi-crore bank fraud case.

“In its nine-year rule, the BJP has overthrown nine governments because they were led by Opposition parties. He wanted to know what happened to the cases registered against Suvendu Adhikari. Were there instances of investigation agencies registering any case against any BJP leader,” he asked.

Related: People laugh when ED, CBI issue notices these days, says BRS

‘Targeting BRS leaders’

Listing out the raids by the ED, Income Tax department and the CBI, he said they targeted ministers Gangula Kalamalkr, Ch Malla Reddy, T Srinivasa Yadav, and G Jagadish Reddy.

The investigation agencies also targeted BRS leader in the Lok Sabha, Nama Nageswarar Rao, Rajya Sabha MP Vaddiraju Ravichandra, Parthasarathy Reddy, Lok Sabha member Manne Srinivas Reddy, MLC L Ramana, and MLA Pilot Rohit Reddy.

“As many as 12 BRS leaders were targeted by the investigation agencies,” he said.

He described the summons to Kavitha as not those sent by ED.

“They were Modi summons. ED and CBI are puppets in Modi’s hands,” he said, adding that Modi knew only two games — “jumla” and “hamla”.

KTR said that Modi was not bothered even when people’s ₹13 lakh crore, which LIC and SBI invested in the Adani Group, was evaporating. Modi favoured Adani with six airports though the rules laid down said that no more than two airports could be given to any single institution, he said.

The minister said that 95 percent of the raids the central investigation agencies conducted were on Opposition party leaders.

During the past nine years, the ED had registered 5,422 cases of which the accused were convicted only in 23 cases, he noted.