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No proof for cash-for-query charge: Moitra to Lok Sabha panel
Moitra, who deposed before the ethics panel on November 2, alleged that Dehadrai subjected her to “the worst kind of harassment in the last nine months”.
Trinamool Congress lawmaker Mahua Moitra, who is on the verge of getting expelled from the Lok Sabha, argued before the ethics committee of the Lok Sabha that there was no substantial evidence in the affidavit of businessman Darshan Hiranandani against her to substantiate the cash-for-query allegations, and accused lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai, her former friend, of lodging a bogus complaint after their relationship ended.
Moitra, who deposed before the ethics panel on November 2, alleged that Dehadrai subjected her to “the worst kind of harassment in the last nine months”, sent “filthy” messages and lodged the complaint with Parliament out of personal reasons, according to the panel’s report that was adopted on Thursday.
The lawmaker, popular for her fiery oratory before accusations of cash for questions surfaced last month, also said that she knew Dehadrai only from October 2019. “In the affidavit, he has written that Hiranandani gave Rs.75 lakh in April. How did he know when he didn’t even know me at that time?” she asked, according to the report.
Moitra also told the panel that Dehadrai leaked photographs of her taken on his birthday to paint a picture of Moitra as a “woman of loose morals”. The member of Parliament, who was seen holding a cigar in a leaked photo that went viral, said that she never smoked due to an allergy but that Dehadrai gave her a cigar.
The Trinamool Congress leader also argued that while the lawyer in his complaint mentioned that Hiranandani gave her cash, but in the affidavit, the businessman didn’t mention any cash.
Moitra said that Hiranandani’s affidavit talked of a “very vague” thing - travel expenses. She argued that a bus ticket or a metro ticket can also be a travel expense and said that unless one provided a bill and showed the date the ticket was bought, the claim of travel expense remained “very vague”.
The controversy began last month after BJP lawmaker Nishikant Dubey wrote to Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla on the basis of a complaint by Dehradai, who alleged Moitra accepted money and favours to ask questions in Parliament. Moitra denied the charges that she received gifts, and asked other parliamentarians if they never shared their passwords.
The ethics panel report that recommended her expulsion will now be placed on the floor of the Lok Sabha on the first day of the winter session.
This is the second cash-for-query case in Parliament in two decades. A sting operation by online site Cobrapost on December 12, 2005, had showed 11 MPs accepting cash in exchange for raising questions in the Parliament. On December 24, 2005, Parliament voted to expel the 11 MPs.
Pranab Mukherjee, the leader of the Lok Sabha at the time, introduced a resolution asking for expulsion of the MPs while then PM Manmohan Singh did the same in the Rajya Sabha.
“It would be pertinent to mention that these expulsions were the outcome of recommendations made by the ad-hoc inquiry committees during the 14th Lok Sabha. No member of Lok Sabha earlier has been expelled on recommendations made by the ethics committee of the Lok Sabha,” said parliamentary historian S Garimella.
“So if Moitra is expelled, she would be first woman member to be removed from the Lok Sabha and also the first member to be expelled from the membership of House on a recommendation made by the ethics committee of the Lok Sabha,” he added.
