New Delhi: Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Friday admitted to letting Darshan Hiranandani use her Lok Sabha login credentials to post questions that she claimed were hers. However, she denied allegations of taking bribes from him, saying that the only things she had received from Darshan Hiranandani, the CEO of the Hiranandani Group, as gifts were “one scarf, some lipsticks, and other makeup items including eye shadow.” In an interview with India Today, she demanded that she be given the chance to cross-examine him.
The Ethics Committee of the parliament has summoned her to present her defence on October 31 but Moitra has requested more time due to “pre-committed programmes” in her constituency Krishnanagar. Most members of the Ethics Committee have said the charges against Moitra are serious in nature and amount to a breach of parliamentary privilege. BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and Delhi-based lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai have already recorded their statements and presented evidence against the Trinamool MP.
Moitra defended sharing login credentials with Hiranandani saying she has done that with others too “as she worked from a remote constituency.” “But there is always an OTP and the team would always post my questions,” she said, claiming that the NIC that operates government and parliamentary websites had no rules against this.
