‘What’s the nature of your friendship with Hiranandani?’: Ethics panel asked Mahua Moitra

On November 2, expelled Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, along with a few opposition members, stormed out of a parliament ethics committee meeting, accusing its chairperson of asking personal and unethical questions to her. Moitra had appeared for her deposition before the committee headed by BJP MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar over the cash-for-query allegations.

A transcript of her deposition before the panel has now revealed that Moitra was asked quite a few personal questions  including her relationships with industrialist Darshan Hiranandani and details of the hotels she stayed in when meeting, reported The Hindu.

“Why do you consider industrialist Darshan Hiranandani a dear friend?”, “What is the nature of your friendship with him?”, and “Where did you stay on your trips to Dubai?” were some of the questions the ethics panel chief asked the Trinamool Congress leader, the report said.

After walking out of the meeting, Moitra shot off a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, alleging that she was subjected to humiliation at the meeting. 

Moitra alleged that Sonkar, instead of asking questions pertinent to the matter, exhibited a preconceived bias by questioning her in a malicious and defamatory way.

"I write to you in great anguish today to update you on the unethical, sordid, and prejudiced behaviour meted out to me at the hearing of the ethics committee by the Chairman. I have been subjected to the proverbial 'vastraharan' by him in the presence of all members of the Committee," she said, adding that the ethics committee has “no ethics or morality left”.

Moitra was expelled from Lok Sabha on December 8 following the ethics panel’s recommendations. In its 479-page report, the ethics committee recommended Moitra's expulsion from the lower house for "unethical conduct" and "contempt of the House" and a detailed probe into the cash-for-query allegations against her.

The house adopted the panel report by a voice vote.

Weeks before she was expelled, Moitra had told THE WEEK in an interview that Hiranandani was still her friend.

A staunch critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party, Moitra has been at the centre of a raging controversy ever since BJP MP Nishikant Dubey accused her of “taking bribes” from Hiranandani for asking some specific questions in parliament.

Dubey, in a letter the Speaker, also alleged that the TMC leader had compromised the national interest by sharing the login details of her Lok Sabha account with Hiranandani, an “outsider”.

The Speaker referred the matter to the ethics committee which, after recording the statements of Moitra, Dubey and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai—who allegedly provided evidence against the ex-MP—recommended her disqualification as a parliament member.

In her interview to THE WEEK, Moitra denied allegations that her questions on business tycoon Gautam Adani were asked by Hiranandani.

“This is the biggest lie. Hiranandani did not ask any questions. I have asked 61 questions over the past five years. There are only nine questions relating to Adani. And each of those nine questions is in public interest. Six of those questions are about the foreign portfolio investors coming into Adani Group, which are in public interest. One is about Dhamra. What is Hiranandani going to do with it?,” she had asked.