Kolkata (TIP)- Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra accused the Chairman of Parliament’s Ethics Committee of “sordid, unethical and prejudiced” conduct during the hearing in connection with the cash for query allegations against her.
In a strongly worded letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Mahua Moitra likened Thursday’s (nOV 2) ethics panel proceeding to “vastraharan” (disrobing).
“How shameful is it that I, as one of only 78 female members of Lok Sabha, are subjected to Vastraharan in the name of ‘Ethics Committee’ hearing by the Chairperson of the Committee?” Mahua Moitra said in the letter.
Mahua Moitra had stormed out of the Parliamentary panel’s meeting during an enquiry on whether she accepted a Rs 2 crore bribe to pose questions in Parliament. During her walkout, she was joined by BSP‘s Danish Ali, who seconded her stand on the panel’s cross-examination.
“The committee ought to designate itself under a name other than Ethics Committee 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 5 of 11 members present walked out and boycotted the proceedings in protest at his shameful conduct,” Moitra’s letter read.
Moitra alleged that the panel’s Chairman Vinod Sonkar “stooped to a sordid line of questioning while reading from a script”. She also alleged that the panel’s head asked her “detailed and extremely personal questions about her private life”.
“He (Chairman) continued even after being warned multiple times by other members of the Committee to refrain from this filthy line of questioning,” Moitra said in her letter.
The Trinamool MP further alleged a breach of her privacy. She said that as a female MP, the cross-examination was no less than “humiliation”.
“One of these was, for example, about who I speak to at night, how many times and asking for those call details,” Moitra said in the letter.
MAHUA MOITRA ON BRIBERY CHARGES
Rebutting Darshan Hiranandani’s affidavit to the Lok Sabha secretariat wherein the businessman admitted to using her credentials to pose questions in Parliament, Mahua Moitra, in her letter, said that Hiranandani did not provide any “evidence of cash”. Earlier, Mahua Moitra questioned the credibility of Darshan Hiranandani’s affidavit which he submitted before the Ethics Committee of Parliament and alleged that the Prime Minister’s Office forced him to sign a white paper that “was leaked to the media”.
Shortly after Mahua Moitra walked out of the parliamentary meeting on the cash-for-query matter, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey said the Trinamool MP had made her “own narrative” of the cross-examination session. Dubey, who had initiated the charges against Moitra, said he had enough evidence to establish that Moitra breached the protocols of Parliament.
Meanwhile, another member of Lok Sabha Ethics panel Aparajita Sarangi, who is BJP MP from Bhubaneswar, said, “When questions were raised about Hiranandani’s affidavit, Mahua Moitra became furious. She was very aggressive, rude, defensive, and arrogant. Mahua Moitra used unparliamentary language in the Assembly.”