Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Thursday alleged that she was subjected to proverbial “vastraharan”, or disrobing, by the chairperson of the Ethics Committee when she was being questioned in connection with the cash-for-query case.
The case pertains to complaints by Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey and Supreme Court advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai alleging that Moitra took bribes from businessperson Darshan Hiranandani to ask questions in Parliament.
The ethics committee launched its investigation into the matter in October. Moitra appeared before the panel on Thursday but stormed out of the meeting along with Opposition members of the panel. She accused committee chairperson Vinod Sonkar of asking her personal and unethical questions.
However, Sonkar told reporters on Thursday that instead of answering the questions, Moitra and other Opposition MPs got angry and avoided the matter. He also alleged that Moitra used unparliamentary language against the panel members.
In a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla after the meeting, Moitra said that the committee should find another name for itself as it has “no ethics and morality left”.
“Instead of asking questions pertinent to the subject, the chairman exhibited a preconceived bias by maliciously and clearly in a defamatory way questioning me, so much so that five of the 11 members present walked out and boycotted the proceedings in protest at his shameful conduct,” she alleged.
She alleged that Sonkar picked the “most sordid line of questioning” as he read from a “script” asking her “detailed and personal questions” questions. “He continued even after being warned multiple times by other members of the committee to refrain from this filthy line of questioning,” she claimed.
On the allegations against her, Moitra said while some people use “abusive and vitriolic language”, Opposition members who question the government are subjected to harassment.
She was referring to statements made by BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri during a debate in Parliament on the success of India’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission on September 21. Bidhuri had called Bahujan Samaj Party MP Kunwar Danish Ali a “mullah terrorist”, “pimp” and “katwa”, a slur used for circumcised Muslims.
In her letter, Moitra asked the Lok Sabha Secretariat to disclose regulations on sharing of login and password to put questions on the Parliament website. “Why were these rules never given to MPs and if they were, why is every single MP sharing this ID and login with numerous people?” she asked.
Moitra had clarified in an interview in October that she gave Hiranandani access to her online Lok Sabha account but denied taking any bribes from him. She had claimed that MPs do not type their own questions and that the queries can only be submitted upon entering a one-time password, which is delivered to the phone number of the legislators.
“On my part, I repeatedly protested on record that while the chairman was welcome to ask me any question relevant to the enquiry – namely on the login and on those allegations of gifts for which evidence, or rather complete lack of it, existed – he could not ask me detailed personal questions making insinuations about my dignity as a woman,” she told the Speaker on Thursday.
Moitra reiterated that Dehadrai and Dubey have no evidence of bribery and Hiranandani has not mentioned any cash transactions in his affidavit to the ethics committee.
The Hiranandani Group initially dismissed Dubey’s allegations against Moitra as having “no merit”. However, on October 19, Hiranandani, the chief executive officer of the real estate company, submitted an affidavit to the ethics committee, accusing Moitra of spreading unverified information about industrialist Gautam Adani.
Moitra claimed that she had used the secretarial help of Hiranandani’s office to type out the questions for submission, but added that she framed the queries.
“It is important to note that this portal is not the same as the Lok Sabha email or password which I have not shared with anybody – hence there is no question of misuse of my official email,” she added. “No unauthorised, unsupervised submission of questions could be made since my mobile number was the one on which the final OTP was delivered – hence no question could be submitted without my approval or knowledge. Each MP has a large team of people with access to the login portal.”
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