New Delhi: Lok Sabha was adjourned till 2 pm on Friday amid ruckus in the House soon after the Ethics Committee report on Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra in the ‘cash-for-query’ case was tabled by BJP’s Vijay Sonkar.
Opposition MPs said that the motion to disqualify Mahua might be brought at 2 pm and the government may push it through a voice vote without any debate or discussion. “We haven’t received it yet. Let me have my lunch and come back. Whatever has to happen, will happen after 2 pm…,” Mahua said while leaving Parliament.
In an interaction with reporters earlier in the day, a confident, and typically fierce Moitra said, “Maa Durga aa gayi hai, ab dekhenge…Jab naash manuj par chhata hai, pehle vivek mar jaata hai (Maa Durga has come! Now we will see.. when destruction comes, conscience dies first).”
“They have started ‘vastraharan‘ and now you will watch ‘Mahabharat ka rann (battlefield)’.”
Meanwhile, Trinamool MP Sudip Bandopadhyay has written a letter saying the ethics committee report has just been tabled and members should get 48 hours time to study it before any resolution is passed.
THE REPORT
“The serious misdemeanours on the part of Smt Mahua Moitra calls for severe punishment. The Committee, therefore, recommend that Smt Mahua Moitra, MP may be expelled from the Membership of the Seventeenth Lok Sabha.”
THE REACTIONS
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor
“Incredibly inadequate report. It seems to have been adopted in two and a half minutes, according to one of the members. No proper procedure has been followed, there was no attempt to cross-examine those who have made accusations and at the same time the conclusion of such a major punishment as expulsion of a member to arrive that without serious consideration is truly disgraceful. Opposition, all the INDIA Alliance parties are completely convinced that this is a travesty of justice, it would set a very undesirable precedent for the future…All of this suggests to us a political vendetta and not a judicially sustainable process. It is most unfortunate that Parliament is being reduced to such a performance of political vendetta…”
Congress leader Manickam Tagore B
“It is an attack on the Parliamentary system itself if an industrial house conspires to throw an MP out of the House just because the member has questioned the industrial house. We will oppose the report to be placed in Lok Sabha against Mahua Moitra,”
Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury
“The issue is going on for a long time…It is putting the wrong message across the nation. Why does this government do revenge politics? PM Modi talks well but I don’t understand why’s there so much difference in his speech and actions…What was such a huge mistake that suspension from the house was needed? Can they not ask her in the House in front of everyone…It appears to be a dictatorship…”
