Oppn members storm out of LS Ethics Committee meet with Mahua Moitra
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New Delhi: Opposition members of the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee on Thursday stormed out of a meeting along with Mahua Moitra, accusing the panel's chairperson of asking the TMC MP personal and unethical questions.
"We found the ethics committee chairperson's questions to Moitra undignified and unethical," Congress MP and panel member N Uttam Kumar Reddy told reporters after the walkout.
Opposition members of the committee, which had asked Moitra to depose before it in connection with allegations of "gifts-for-query" against her, also questioned the manner in which the meeting was conducted.
The committee continued with its deliberations even after the protest.
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Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Moitra on Thursday pleaded innocence to the allegations levelled against her and told the parliamentary committee that the charge is motivated by the animus of advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai after she broke her personal relations with him, sources said.
She found support from some opposition MPs, including Reddy and Danish Ali of the BSP, in the meeting, while a few BJP members, including V D Sharma, wanted her to respond to the substantive part of the allegations and not make it all about personal relationship going bad.
Sources said a large part of her deposition before the ethics committee was about her relationship with Dehadrai as she appeared to blame him for leaks and the allegations.
Citing Dehadrai's submission, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey had filed a complaint against her with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla who referred the matter to the committee.
Dubey on Thursday alleged that Moitra tried to create a wrong narrative about the proceedings of the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee that is probing allegations of "gifts-for-query" against her. His remark came hours after opposition members of the ethics panel walked out of the meeting along with Moitra.
Addressing a press conference, Dubey said the committee was bound to question Moitra on the affidavit filed by businessman Darshan Hiranandani. He alleged that the opposition was perturbed by the fact that the panel is headed by an OBC member. "They were unable to digest the fact," Dubey said.
The BJP leader further claimed that "no power" could save Moitra after all the evidence provided by him and others against her to the ethics committee.
Moitra has been accused of asking questions, which were keyed in through her parliamentary account, at the behest of Hiranandani in return for bribes and favours from the Dubai-based scion of a well-known business family.
In her remarks to the media, Moitra has admitted that she shared her log-in credentials with Hiranandani, whom she has described as a close friend for a long time, but has ruled out any pecuniary motive and asserted that the questions were always hers.
The Trinamool Congress MP has claimed that the Adani Group is behind the "bogus" charges due to her strident criticism of the business conglomerate.
With inputs from PTI
