Hyderabad/New Delhi, March 15 : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday arrested Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC K. Kavitha in the Delhi excise policy case after searches at her residence in Hyderabad.

After the searches which lasted for a few hours, the ED officials took her into custody.

Kavitha, the daughter of BRS President and former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, will be brought to New Delhi by a flight on Friday night, sources said.

Tension prevailed outside her residence in the evening as BRS leaders and workers gathered there on learning about her arrest and raised slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ED.

BRS Working President and her brother K.T. Rama Rao and senior leader and cousin T. Harish Rao reached Kavitha's house but were stopped outside. The ED officials later allowed them into the house.

Talking to reporters, BRS leader and former minister V. Prashanth Reddy termed the arrest "illegal" and alleged that the Modi government resorted to the action to create fear among BRS leaders ahead of Lok Sabha elections.

He claimed that the ED team came to her residence with a plan to arrest her.

"They said they came to conduct a search but now we came to know that they are taking her to Delhi by 8.45 p.m. flight," he said.

The BRS leader said Kavitha was arrested even as her petition in the Supreme Court seeking orders to restrain the ED from arresting her in a money laundering case was to come up for hearing on March 19.

Prashanth Reddy said the BRS would fight this act of political vendetta by the BJP in people's court.

The ED already questioned the former MP on a few occasions in the past. However, she has not appeared before the summons by the agency since October last year. Kavitha had approached the Supreme Court, challenging the summons.

/IANS