Mahua Moitra is facing heat over “cash for query” allegations (File)
New Delhi:
The comprehensive report regarding Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra’s alleged cash-for-query case has already been submitted to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Monday, BJP MP and Ethics Committee member Aparajita Sarangi said.
“The committee has submitted its comprehensive report to the Lok Sabha Speaker and it figured in the agenda yesterday. But for some reason, it could not be tabled. We are waiting for the Lok Sabha Speaker’s orders. Whenever he says, it will be tabled,” Ms Sarangi said.
“Once it is tabled, we wouldn’t mind any kind of discussion. We are always open to any kind of discussion… I think the report is very comprehensive and everything has to be taken into account, including the content of the affidavit of Darshan Hiranandani. So, I think the Speaker has to take a call on that…,” she said.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, who has been facing heat over the “cash for query” allegations, said on the second day of the Winter Session that she is not sure whether the Ethics Committee report, which suggested her removal from the House, will be placed in the House on Tuesday or not.
“Let’s see. It was not on the List of Business. I don’t know whether they will place it or not. If they do so, let them,” Mahua Moitra told reporters before entering Parliament on the second day of the Winter session.
The Ethics Committee, which probed the ‘cash-for-query’ allegations against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra, was reportedly scheduled to lay its report in the Lok Sabha on the first day of the Winter Session on December 4.
Meanwhile, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey on Monday alleged that the Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury leaked the report before it was tabled in the House.
Lok Sabha Ethics Committee submitted its draft report last month in connection with the “cash-for-query” case to Om Birla.
The committee adopted its 500-page report on November 9 recommending Ms Moitra’s expulsion from the 17th Lok Sabha for her “highly objectionable, unethical, heinous and criminal conduct.”
Notably, Nishikant Dubey had written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla against Ms Moitra, accusing her of asking questions in Lok Sabha to target the Adani Group at the behest of businessman Darshan Hiranandani in exchange for gifts.
However, several leaders of the Opposition, including Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Danish Ali and Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, have opposed the report.
