New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has referred BJP MP Nishikant Dubey’s “bribe-for-query” complaint against Trinamool Congress member Mahua Moitra to the Ethics Committee of the lower house, news agency PTI reported on Tuesday.
Dubey has accused Moitra of having accepted ‘cash and gifts’ from a member of Darshan Hiranandani family to ask questions in Parliament and urged Birla to constitute an “inquiry committee” to look into the charges against her.
Dubey’s complaint stemmed from a letter he received from advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, who had filed a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) claiming to have “irrefutable evidence of bribes exchanged” between Moitra and Hiranandani.
In his letter to the speaker, Dubey said 50 of 61 questions she asked in Lok Sabha till recently were focused on the Adani Group, the business conglomerate which the TMC MP has often accused of malpractices. He also wrote to IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, urging him to investigate the IP addresses of Moitra’s log-in credentials for the House.
While Hiranandani Group has denied the allegations, Moitra has sent legal notices to Dubey and Dehadrai for making “false and defamatory allegations” against her while asserting that the charges were based on a “jilted ex’s lies”.
According to the notice, Moitra and the advocate used to be close friends, but had a falling out. After that, Dehadrai allegedly “repeatedly threatened our Client [Moitra] with several vile, malicious and vulgar messages” and trespassed on her official residence and stole personal possessions, including Moitra’s dog. The legal notice added that the dog was later returned.
It further stated Moitra had filed multiple police complaints against Dehadrai in the last six months. “However, soon after convincing our Client [Moitra] to withdraw the [police] Complaints dated 25 March 2023 and 23 September 2023, Noticee No. 2 [Dehadrai] immediately zapped back to old ways and continued his misguided and malicious pursuit of vendetta against our Client. Noticee No. 2 reached out to several prominent journalists and attempted to convince them to run stories based on wild, vindictive, fictitious and entirely imaginary allegations about our Client. It appears that no credible journalist responded to Noticee No. 2’s desperate attempts to malign our Client’s reputation basis unsupported and unsubstantiated allegations without even a shred of evidence.”
Dehadrai allegedly then approached the BJP and Dubey, who went on to repeat these allegations and “did not even bother to conduct any due diligence of any kind to establish the veracity of the allegations”.
The notice also claimed that Dubey and Dehadrai allegedly leaked private photos of Moitra after cropping them. She has also sought a public apology from both Dubey and Dehadrai.
Mr A – this lame statement your best efforts? Falling back on Fake Degree MP & a jilted ex’s lies? I won’t rest till @dir_ed , @CBItweets investigate & freeze ₹13000 cr coal scam you have stolen from Indians.
I’m told even Hon’ble @narendramodi is sick of you & your frauds. pic.twitter.com/sfwsmJEKft
— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) October 16, 2023
Moitra was recently trolled after a photo of her’s smoking a cigar and drinking champagne along with a derogatory hashtag went viral on the internet. While accusing the “BJP’s troll sena” of wilily cropping the full image and picturing it in such a way as to show that she was on a rendevous, she said, “Bengal’s women live a life, not a lie.”
