"Many people mistake a loud defense of their own biases for a courageous stand on principle”
"Gautama Buddha taught that the greatest human error is the belief that time is a renewable resource. In truth, time is a priceless luxury that, once spent, is gone forever. This ignorance causes us to postpone our virtue and wait for a perfect alignment of circumstances to act on our ethics suggesting that the greatest error is the delusion that "we have time".
This belief leads to several critical mistakes, wherein, we remain tied to harmful systems (like an unethical party) due to a lack of clarity (ignorance) or a fear of losing status (attachment).
When Kavitha, Former BRS MLC, in a recent emotional address on January 5, 2026, resigned from her post, describing BRS party, a party founded by her father, as "unethical" and a "joke", her decision reflected a profound intersection between political reality and the Buddhist philosophy regarding the nature of time and virtue.
Her emotional departure from the BRS illustrates this human struggle: despite long-standing moral disagreements with her party's direction, she waited for the purported “Right Time” to leave, not realising that the “Right Time” came at the cost of putting her own integrity in doubt.
Her eventual resignation was an acknowledgment that the present moment is the only true time for self-respect and ethical action and her emotional outburst to that effect is an effort to make the people believe so.
By her own account, she faced "systemic restrictions" and marginalisation within the BRS for years, yet she only formally exited after being suspended in September 2025.
Her exit came only after she was suspended in September 2025, suggesting that her "Right Time" was forced by external events rather than internal resolve.
This delay of remaining silent and quitting while her father’s party moved in "unpopular" directions, no doubt, would serve as a reason for a public trial of her character, where her current advocacy for transparency would be weighed against her years of strategic silence.
Regardless of whether she had unwittingly allowed the public to doubt her own values, or whether she committed strategic complicity or whether she would be in a position to fully retrieve her lost integrity, if any, the profound question is :
“Will her new platform survive the crowded field in the Telangana political landscape?”
With the Congress consolidating power, the BRS seeking redemption, and the BJP leaving no page of electoral strategy book unturned to expand its presence, experts opine that her move risks fragmenting the opposition vote and while she will be struggling to fully retrieve her lost integrity.
It would be a tough task for her with her integrity under cloud, to leverage grassroots outreach, and a narrative of anti-corruption and self-respect.
While Kavitha presents her new party-building strategy as a 'policy-first' rejection of the BRS's personality-driven culture, her own words reveal a struggle rooted in personal isolation.
By admitting she quit because the BRS failed to support her during her high-profile arrest, she mirrors her present predicament: a move driven more by personal grievance and perceived abandonment than by a sudden shift in ideological values.
Thus, presence of her party, with no support base of her own at the most would be of a “nuisance value” to the BRS, as her own admission of corruption during BRS regime would strengthen existing narratives against the BRS, while her arrest in liquor scam suggests that she was the beneficiary of BRS’ corrupt practices during its ten-year rule.
The apparent indifference/silence of KCR toward Kavitha’s departure serves as a public indicator of her marginal importance in the BRS’s long-term survival strategy.
In an increasingly multi-polar electoral contest in Telangana, the primary role of her new party may be limited to that of a 'vote-cutter'; by appealing to even a small segment of the BRS’s traditional base, she inadvertently would aid the ruling Congress by splitting anti-incumbency votes.
Ultimately, her decision to turn against a party founded by her father, while still carrying the baggage of her previous role in its administration which had put her integrity under doubt, she ensures that her new platform is viewed less as a principled alternative and more as a personal instrument of survival.
