Cash-for-query case: Mahua moves SC over expulsion from Lok Sabha

Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra has moved Supreme Court challenging her ouster from Parliament over cash-for-query allegations.

The former Krishnanagar MP was expelled from Lok Sabha last week after the Ethics Committee proclaimed her guilty of putting national security at risk by sharing her login credentials of the parliamentary portal with businessman Darshan Hiranandani so that he could post questions on her behalf.

Moitra, well-known for her fiery speeches in Lok Sabha, has also been accused of taking Rs 2 crore in cash and expensive gifts from Hiranandani in exchange for asking questions targeting the Adani Group and the central government in Parliament.

While maintaining that the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee did not have the power to expel her, Moitra moved Supreme Court on Monday (December 11). She has denied taking bribes for asking questions, but admitted to having shared her log-in credentials with Hiranandani.

However, she has said those questions were strictly her own and Hiranandani’s team had merely posted them on her behalf, which, according to her, is common practice among busy parliamentarians. She has also listed the gifts she received from Hiranandani, merely as a “friend”.

Opposition stand

Interestingly, the main allegation against her, as made by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and Moitra’s former partner Jai Anant Dehadrai, was “accepting cash” from Hiranandani. So far, there has been no evidence of it though the CBI has started a probe into those allegations.

Moitra has also argued that she was not allowed to cross-examine Hiranandani and Dehadrai by the ethics panel and accused it of asking her inappropriate questions.

In November, the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee recommended her expulsion, and its 500-page report was tabled in the Lok Sabha on December 8, which was followed by Moitra’s expulsion amid vehement protests by the Opposition.

TMC supremo and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has blamed Moitra’s expulsion on the BJP’s “vendetta politics”. She has also claimed that it will only “help her (Moitra) before the (2024 Lok Sabha) election”.

Likening her expulsion to being “hanged by a kangaroo court”, Moitra has vowed to continue fighting the BJP for another 30 years. “I am 49 years old; I will fight you for the next 30 years, inside parliament, outside parliament, in the gutter, on the street,” she said after her expulsion.

The Opposition has rallied behind Moitra, with senior Congress leader Adhir Chowdhury seeking a relook into the rules of the Ethics Committee and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav saying the BJP would be left with few MPs if the same rules applied to them.