BRS MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha on Tuesday levelled allegations of “malice” against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as she submitted phones which she had used in the past to the agency.

The ED, in a remand report of an accused, had submitted before a Delhi court that Kavitha had destroyed her earlier phones in an attempt to destroy evidence. Today, as she left her residence in New Delhi to appear before the probe agency for the third time she held aloft the phones kept in transparent plastic bags. On the very first day she was told to submit her current set.

In a letter to Jogender, assistant director of ED she wrote, “I may take this opportunity to point out the glaring act of malice on part of the agency when it has chosen to make insinuations against me in the prosecution complaint filed qua some other accused in November 2022 alleging that certain phones stands destroyed.

It is baffling to note as to how, why and under what circumstances the agency made such allegations when I was not even summoned or asked any questions however.” She pointed out that she had appeared before the agency only in March 2023 and labelled the accusations against her as “malafide, misconceived but also prejudicial.”

Then she went on to say how the “deliberate leakage of the false accusation” has led to a “political slugfest wherein my political adversaries have been flaunting the accusations to accuse me of destroying the so called evidence and indulging in causing great harm to my reputation and attempting to defame me, my political party as well as to lower my image in the eyes of the public at large.”

Apart from accusing the ED of serving “vested political interest” at the cost of free and fair investigation Kavitha slammed the agency for intruding on her privacy as a woman. After the allegations against her had been made public Opposition parties have come up with memes and morphed images projecting her as someone selling liquor.

It may be pointed out that Kavitha has already approached the Supreme Court apprehending the investigations against her will not be fair. The case has been listed for hearing on 24 March. Meanwhile, Kavitha had refused to appear before the agency on 16 March citing the case and sent her bank account details through her representative. Yesterday however, she appeared before the agency and was allowed to go home after more than 10 hours with summons to appear again today.