The parliament ethics committee has summoned Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on October 31 over the cash-for-query allegations, panel chief Vinod Sonkar said on Thursday.
The committee recorded the statements of BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and Advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, who had accused the TMC lawmaker of taking bribes from businessman Darshan Hiranandani to ask questions in parliament.
“The two people who were summoned today – the lawyer and Nishikant Dubey – were heard attentively. After that, it was decided that Mahua Moitra would be called on October 31. She will come and present her part. The committee has also decided that the IT Ministry and MHA will be sent letters to make her details available,” Sonkar said.
Dehadrai was the first to record his statement before the ethics committee, while Dubey appeared before the panel in the afternoon. Dubey had earlier written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, accusing Moitra of breach of parliamentary privilege and demanding her immediate suspension from house.
In his letter, Dubey said the advocate, close to Moitra before they fell out, had shared “irrefutable evidence of bribes exchanged” between her and businessman Hiranandani to target the Adani Group and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Speaker Birla forwarded the complaint to the Ethics Committee headed by BJP MP Vinod Sonkar. The other members are Vishnu Datt Sharma, Sumedhanand Saraswati, Aparajita Sarangi, Rajdeep Roy, Sunita Duggal, and Subhash Bhamre of the BJP; V. Vaithilingam, N Uttam Kumar Reddy, Balashowry Vallabbhaneni, and Preneet Kaur of the Congress; Hemant Godse of the Shiv Sena; Giridhari Yadav of the JD(U); P R Natarajan of the CPI(M); and Danish Ali of the BSP.
Hiranandani has admitted that that the MP has shared with him her Lok Sabha login details so that he could directly post the questions.
In a signed affidavit submitted to the ethics panel, Hiranandani said Moitra had made frequent demands, including “expensive luxury items, providing support on renovation of her officially allotted bungalow in Delhi, travel expenses, holidays, etc, apart from providing secretarial and logistical help for her travels within India and to different parts of the world”.
Moitra, however, has denied all allegations as the lies of “jilted ex” (Dehadrai) and said she was being targetted by the Adani group as she was relentless in raising questions on the conglomerate’s practices. Calling Hiranandani’s affidavit a “joke”, Moitra said that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) might have forced him to sign the paper.
