Mahua Moitra says experience at Ethics Committee meeting akin to 'Vastraharan'

IANS

Kolkata, November 3

Hours after facing questioning by the Ethics Committee of the Parliament in the 'cash for query' controversy and staging a walkout from there on Thursday, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra shot a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, describing the session as a “proverbial Vastraharan”.

“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,” the opening lines of Moitra's letter to the Lok Sabha speaker read.

In the letter, she also claimed that no “ethics” and “morality” were left in the proceedings of the said meeting.

“Instead of asking questions pertinent to the subject, the Chairman exhibited a preconceived bias by maliciously and clearly in a defamatory way was questioning me, so much so that 5 of the 11 members present walked out and boycotted the proceedings in protest at his shameful act,” the letter to Lok Sabha speaker read.

Moitra, in her letter, also accused the Ethics Committee Chairman of asking her questions on her personal life.

“The Chairman today insisted on following the most sordid line of questioning while reading from a script (no doubt prepared by some interested parties) in which he asked me detailed and extremely personal questions about my private life. He continued even after being warned multiple times by the other members of the committee to refrain from his filthy line of questioning,” the letter read.

Claiming that privacy is a fundamental right as per the Supreme Court verdict, Moitra added that humiliating a female MP by asking irrelevant questions is a breach of her fundamental right to privacy, apart from being in extremely poor taste.

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