* Moitra pleads innocence
Opposition members of the Lok Sabha ethics committee walked out of a panel meeting on Thursday, accusing its chairperson of asking personal and unethical questions to Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra.
Moitra had appeared for her deposition before the committee headed by BJP MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar over the cash-for-query allegations. “We found the ethics committee chairperson’s questions to Moitra undignified and unethical,” Congress MP and panel member N. Uttam Kumar Reddy told reporters.
The opposition members also questioned the manner in which the meeting was conducted. Sonkar, meanwhile, accused Moitra of using unparliamentary language against the chairperson and other members.
“Instead of giving answers, she got angry and used unparliamentary language against the chairperson, and other committee members. Danish Ali, Girdhari Yadav and other opposition MPs tried to accuse the committee and walked out… The committee will sit and decide the further action,” he said.
Another BJP MP and panel member Aparajita Sarangi said that Moitra behaved in an angry, rude and arrogant manner when she was asked about the affidavit submitted to the committee by businessman Darshan Hiranandani.
Moitra, who has been in the middle of a political storm ever since BJP MP Nishikant Dubey accused her of taking bribes from Hiranandani for asking questions in parliament, pleaded innocence to the allegations.
She told the ethics panel that the charges are motivated by animus of advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai—who allegedly provided evidence against the TMC MP—after she broke her personal relations with him, PTI reported quoting sources.
Some of the opposition MPs, including Reddy and Danish Ali of the BSP, extended their support to Moitra while a few BJP members wanted her to respond to the substantive part of the allegations and not make it all about personal relationship going bad, the report said.
