Mahua Moitra and Nishikant Dubey
In October, Bharatiya Janata Party member Nishikant Dubey made it to the headlines-grabbing claims against Mahua Moitra, his Trinamool Congress counterpart in Lok Sabha, claiming that she accepted a payment to ask questions in Parliament. Since then, Dubey has asked for an inquiry into the claims.
Request of inquiry committee against Mahua Moitra
Dubey demanded in a letter to Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, his minister of state (MoS) Rajeev Chandrashekhar, and Speaker of the Lok Sabha Om Birla that an inquiry committee be formed to ascertain whether the accusations made against her were real.
Dubey’s accusations were based on a letter he got from Supreme Court lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai, which cited “irrefutable evidence of bribes” that were transferred between Moitra and businessman Darshan Hiranandani, who is the CEO of the real estate firm Hiranandani Group. The BJP MP asserted that the accusations bear similarities to the ‘Cash for Query Scandal’ that occurred in December 2005.
But the TMC MP, referring to Dehadrai, has rejected the accusations as a “jilted ex’s lies.” She also poked fun at Dubey following the BJP MP’s recent letter to the IT minister requesting Ashwini Vaishnaw to make public every MP’s location and login credentials.
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Proofs against Mahua Moitra to get her expelled from Lok Sabha
Using a letter from Jai Anant Dehadrai, Nishikant Dubey said that 50 of the 61 questions posed by the Mahua Moitra in Parliament up until this point were all intended to “protect or perpetuate business interests” of Darshan Hiranandani and his conglomerate. The Supreme Court attorney claimed that these inquiries, which were made in exchange for money and gifts, frequently centred on the Adani Group, a competitor company of Hiranandani.
Dehadrai asserted that Moitra had, in the previous few years, “vehemently” attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, frequently bringing up the Adani group, in an attempt to give the impression that she was “critical of the government.” The claim was that she may have done this to protect herself from her “clandestine criminal operation.”
Dubey claimed in his letter that “the representationalist has forwarded all the papers and documents in support of information” and he was enclosing them.
Re-emergence of ‘Cash for query’
“Now, with the unmasking of quid pro quo in the form of ugly and deliberate motive of Smt Mahua Moitra, to raise money from a businessman in leu of asking questions in Lok Sabha, targeting another business Group, it has become amply clear that the edifice of ‘morality’ being exhibited by Smt Mahua Moitra was nothing but a ‘Machiavellian Camouflage’ for committing a crime by entering into a criminal conspiracy and at the same time enjoying the title given to Smt Mahua Moitra: as a firebrand Member of Parliament’ which is nothing but a sham” said the letter from Dubey.
The letter alleges that the “instant episode is nothing but a re-emergence of ‘cash for query’. According to the report, when a similar incident occurred on December 12, 2005, during the 14th Lok Sabha, the Speaker at the time immediately established an Inquiry Committee. On December 23, 2005, after 23 days, 10 members of the committee were ejected from the Lok Sabha.
In his post on X Nishikant Dubey alleged that there had been an exchange of several gifts. “This very house cancelled membership of 11 MPs in ‘cash for questions’. Today also this theft will not work. One businessman is bad for them, but they have no qualms in taking 35 pairs of shoes from the other. Like Mrs (Imelda) Marcos the Hermes, LV, Gucci bag, purse, clothes and hawala money will not work. The membership will go, please wait” the BJP MP said.
