Jun 13, 2023
Cash-for-query row: Ethics panel asks Mahua Moitra to appear on Nov 2, says no further extension will be granted
The Lok Sabha Ethics Committee on Saturday asked Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra to appear before it on November 2 instead of October 31 in the cash-for-query case. The panel asserted that no further extension will be granted to her.
Earlier, on Thursday, BJP leader Nishikant Dubey and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai appeared before the Ethics Committee to record their statements and give “oral evidence” in connection with the case against the TMC MP.
The committee, however, said it will not entertain any request for further extension.
The panel is probing BJP MP Nishikant Dubey’s allegations that Moitra accepted bribes and favours for asking questions in Lok Sabha at the behest of businessman Darshan Hiranandani, CEO of the Hiranandani Group.
In his complaint to Speaker Om Birla, Dubey has cited documents shared by Dehadrai to back his cash-for-query allegations against the TMC MP. Moitra had referred to Dehadrai as “a jilted ex” in a social media post.
He also wrote to IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, urging him to investigate the IP addresses of Moitra’s log-in credentials for Lok Sabha to check if they had been accessed by someone else.
On October 19, Darshan Hiranandani, in an affidavit to the Ethics Committee, claimed that Moitra provided him her Parliament login and password so that he could “post the questions” directly “on her behalf when required”. Moitra called the letter a “joke”, and said, “the draft of this letter was sent by the PMO and he (Darshan) was forced to sign it.”
In a three-page affidavit submitted to the committee and released to the press by the Hiranandani Group’s corporate communication team, Darshan Hiranandani, who lives in Dubai, said Moitra “thought that the only way to attack Sh. Modi (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) is by attacking Sh. Gautam Adani and his group as both were contemporaries, and they belong to the same state of Gujarat.”
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