In a development that has not come as a surprise to most political observers in Telangana, K Kavitha has been suspended from the Bharatiya Rashtra Samiti (BRS). For some time now, trouble had been brewing between her, the party, and her father, K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), the party supremo.
According to several party insiders who spoke to TNM, things have not been good between the father and daughter for quite some time. K Kavitha always felt that the family functioned in a patriarchal manner, in which her brother KT Rama Rao was given precedence over her.
However, these issues never really boiled to the surface while the BRS was in power.
The main friction began in 2023, when the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate started naming Kavitha as a person involved in the liquor scam. In March 2024, she was arrested by the ED and later by the CBI, and she remained in jail until August 27, 2024.
Sources reveal that during this period, her father K Chandrasekhar Rao did not visit her in jail even once. This proved to be a major point of contention.
“Kavitha also felt that the party should have supported her more,” a source close to her said. But another party person said that this lack of support was not unique to Kavitha. Around the same time, several other BRS leaders also faced action from the ED or CBI, including Gangula Kamalakar, Vaddiraju Ravichandra, Malla Reddy, and Nama Nageswara Rao. The party had not made any overt gesture of support for any of these individuals.
Though she had expected her father to publicly bat for her once she was out of jail, sources say KCR asked her to "lie low." This was, however, something that Kavitha was not ready to do. Despite her father's instructions, she started touring various constituencies. She also began taking public positions that were not in line with the party's official stance, including openly supporting the BC bill, an issue on which the BRS had not yet taken a firm stand.
The friction between them had been publicly brewing for some time. In 2024, Kavitha insisted that a statue for Jyoti Rao Phule should be installed in the Telangana Assembly. She repeated the demands after she came out of jail too and was ridiculed by both the Congress and the BJP, who pointed out that the BRS had failed to do so during its 10 years in power.
In April, when the party celebrated its 25th anniversary, Kavitha was not given any major responsibility, which further irked her.
In May 2025, she made a public statement that despite achieving statehood, Telangana lacked "social justice," which was widely seen as a direct indictment of her father's tenure as CM. She called for a "Samajika Telangana" and said that inequalities should be eliminated.
The deterioration of their relationship became even more evident when a six-page feedback letter she sent to her father was leaked to the media in May 2025. The letter became a controversy as five of its six pages were filled with criticism.
In the letter, Kavitha accused KCR of being "soft" on the BJP, stating that this had sent a wrong signal to the grassroots-level cadre, who were beginning to see the BJP as a potential alternative. She also questioned his decision not to contest the MLC election to the Hyderabad local authorities constituency, which she said had indirectly helped the BJP. Furthermore, she stated that the party president was "selective" and not "accessible."
The leak of this letter unleashed a huge political storm in Telangana. In an off-the-record briefing with the media following the leak, Kavitha did not back down. While she vowed to find who leaked the letter, she also added that the BRS was busy with that instead of focusing on the "Greek warrior." Though she used the Telugu term ‘Greeku veerudu’, which translates to "Greek Warrior," many saw this as a direct attack on her brother, KT Rama Rao, calling him a “playboy.”
Her brother meanwhile, is reportedly upset that she turned on him despite him standing by her during her imprisonment. Even while KCR had chosen to keep his distance, KTR had been vocal in favour of Kavitha and had visited her in Tihar jail several times.
In the last two to three months, Kavitha continued to take on various party leaders, including her brother. At one event, she said that the party cannot be run through Twitter, a comment widely seen as a jab at her brother, who is very active on the medium.
In August, she also referred to senior party leader and former minister Jagadish Reddy as a "Lilliput" and warned the son of another political leader, calling him a "political novice."
In her latest salvo, K Kavitha directly blamed her cousins, Harish Rao, the former Irrigation Minister of Telangana, and Santosh Rao, for the corruption allegations against her father in the Kaleshwaram irrigation project.
In a press meet on September 1, she reportedly escalated her defiance by stating, "how does it matter if the party exists or not?" She went on to compare the party to a "banana peel," a scathing final remark before her suspension was announced.
Sources in the party say that Kavitha's decision to publicly take on the party and its leaders has made it amply clear in the past few months that she was no longer interested in a truce or willing to settle for anything less than what she expected. What remains to be seen now is whether Kavitha will go ahead with forming a new political outfit, despite the state's already crowded political landscape.