TMC MP Mahua Moitra, Opposition MPs walk out of panel meet

Tribune News Service

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, November 2

High drama prevailed during a hearing by the Lok Sabha Committee on Ethics today on the cash-for-query allegations against TMC member Mahua Moitra as Opposition MPs, including the West Bengal MP, walked out of the meeting claiming “personal” questions were asked by panel chairman Kumar Sonkar of the BJP.

‘Unethical, biased’

Alleging unethical and biased behaviour by ethics panel chief Vinod Sonkar, Moitra in a letter to LS Speaker claimed she was subjected to ‘proverbial vastraharan’. Sonkar, however, claimed the TMC MP got angry and used ‘unparliamentary language’.

An MP present at the meeting told The Tribune the meeting started at 11 am and continued till 3.30 pm with a lunch break. Twelve of the 15 committee members were present during the pre-lunch session. When the meeting resumed after lunch, only 11 members were present as Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, suspended by the Congress for anti-party activities, left. Kaur’s absence spared her from taking a stand when a vote was later held on the issue whether the meeting should be adjourned.

Peeved by some of the questions Sonkar was asking Moitra, the Opposition members insisted queries must pertain to the complaint submitted to the Speaker by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, oral evidence given by Jai Anant Dehadrai and the affidavit submitted by Darshan Hiranandani.

When the Opposition MPs demanded adjournment of the sitting, the chairman called for a vote. With Sonkar and five other BJP members of the panel voting in favour of continuation of the sitting, the move for adjournment was defeated. This prompted the five Opposition members to walk out. Moitra claimed she “was asked filthy questions”, while BSP member Danish Ali likened the posers to “Draupadi’s cheerharan”. “The chairman of the ethics committee asked personal questions to Moitra, which was not acceptable,” said Ali.

“They are asking unethical questions. Who do you talk to at night and how do you talk? Will the chairman ask all this? This is too much,” alleged Ali.

“We found the ethics committee chairperson’s questions to Moitra undignified and unethical,” claimed Congress member N Uttam Kumar Reddy. It appeared Sonkar was acting at “somebody’s behest”, he alleged.

Reddy said none of the documents available with the panel supported Dubey’s charge against Moitra of accepting money from Hiranandani to ask questions in the LS that were of interest to him. CPM’s PR Natarajan, JD-U’s Giridhari Yadav and Congress’ V Vaithilingam were the three other Opposition MPs who walked out of the meeting. Sonkar accused the Opposition members of behaving “unethically” and “boycotting the meeting to detract from the allegations against Moitra”.

“Instead of giving answers and cooperating with the probe, she (Moitra) got angry and used unparliamentary language for the chairperson and committee members,” the chairman said.

Dubey said there was nothing untoward about the questions asked to Moitra by Sonkar.

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