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‘Adani-directed media circus’: Mahua Moitra posts on X amid ‘cash for query’ row
The Trinamool Congress MP has been accused of accepting money and gifts from a businessperson to raise questions in Parliament.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Friday said that she welcomes answering any questions of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Parliament's ethics committee.
“I welcome answering questions to CBI & Ethics Committee (which has absolute majority of BJP members) if & when they call me. I have neither time nor interest to feed a Adani-directed media circus trial or answer BJP trolls,” Moitra wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I am enjoying Durga Puja in Nadia.”
Earlier this week, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and Moitra's estranged partner and lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai alleged that Moitra accepted money and gifts from businessperson Darshan Hiranandani to raise questions in Parliament. Moitra has denied the charges.
Dubey's complaint has been referred by the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to Parliament's Ethics Committee.
On Thursday, Hiranandani, who is the CEO of real estate-to-energy group Hiranandani, in a signed affidavit corroborated Dubey's claim saying that the TMC leader targeted Gautam Adani to "malign and embarrass" Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose impeccable reputation gave opposition no opportunity to attack him.
Hiranandani, who confirmed to HT over WhatsApp that he released the statement, admitted that he gave Moitra information on the basis of which she could pose questions attacking the Adani Group; that she received information from others too on this; that he gifted her “expensive luxury items” and underwrote the “renovation of her official” bungalow; and that she provided him with her Parliament login and password so that he could “post the questions directly on her behalf”.
In a detailed rebuttal, Moitra last night said expressed scepticism about the legitimacy of the document due to the lack of official letterhead and notarization, suggesting that a prominent businessman like Darshan Hiranandani would not typically sign such an important statement on plain white paper without potential external pressure. Read Moitra's full statement here.
“The affidavit is on white paper and not on official letterhead or notarised. Why would one of India's most respected/ educated businessman sign a letter like this on white paper unless a gun was put to his head to do it?” the Lok Sabha member said in a statement.
She further called the content of the letter a “joke” and alleged that the affidavit was drafted by “some half-wit in the PMO who doubles up as a creative writer in the BJP's IT cell” as it contained effusive praise for PM Modi and billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani while implicating various political opponents and investigative journalists in her alleged corruption.
