The Enforcement Directorate on Friday arrested BRS leader K Kavitha after an hours-long raid at her premises in Hyderabad and brought her to Delhi for questioning in a money laundering case linked to the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy, agency sources said. The BRS leader entered the agency's headquarters in central Delhi around midnight and would be lodged there for the night, sources said.

Kavitha, 46, a Telangana Legislative Council member, was arrested by the central probe agency at 5:20 pm from her residence at Banjara Hills in Hyderabad, according to the arrest memo. Her husband D R Anil Kumar was informed about her arrest and her preliminary statement was recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) during the search that began at 1:45 pm, ED officials said. She is the third high-profile arrest in the case after AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh. Her arrest came a day before the scheduled announcement of the Lok Sabha election schedule. Kavitha, the daughter of former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, was brought to Delhi in a commercial flight that landed at the IGI Airport late evening.