Hours after Mahua Moitra wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Thursday alleging that she was subjected to the “proverbial vastraharan” by the chairperson of the Ethics Committee during a hearing on the cash-for-query allegations against her, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey extended his support to Vinod Kumar Sonkar and hit out at Opposition MPs for backing the TMC MP in the case.
“The chairman of the ethics committee, Vinod Sonkar, who hails from a scheduled caste, faced abusive language in the committee. He was referred to as a scoundrel in Parliament, called derogatory names, such as a Bihari goon and a Jharkhandi dog,” Dubey wrote on social media X in Hindi.
“If being a woman serves as proof for Mahua, a Member of Parliament, to sell national security for a few corrupt pennies, then at least the opposition MPs, who support her corruption, receive salutations. They could at least play the victim card well,” the BJP MP from Jharkhand’s Godda added.
Dubey, who had led the call to investigate the allegation that Moitra gave her Parliament login ID to Hiranandani to target the Adani Group and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, shared the X post after he addressed the media on Thursday evening and alleged that Moitra tried to build a wrong narrative about the proceedings of the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee that is probing “gifts-for-query” allegations against her.
“No power” in the world can save Moitra given the evidence submitted by him, advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, businessman Darshan Hiranandani, the IT ministry, home ministry and the external affairs ministry in the matter, the BJP leader said.
The parliamentary panel will take such a decision that no MP in the future can indulge in such activity, the BJP MP claimed.
Moitra has been accused of asking questions, which were keyed in through her parliamentary account, at the behest of Hiranandani in return for bribes and favours from the Dubai-based scion of a well-known business family.
The BJP MP’s remark came hours after opposition members of the ethics panel stormed out of the meeting along with Moitra, accusing the committee’s chairperson of asking the TMC leader personal and unethical questions.
Today, she is not that firebrand person and has come out with opposition MPs, he said at the press conference.
In her letter to Birla, Moitra also alleged that the panel chairperson, 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,” Moitra said in her strongly worded letter.
“The committee ought to designate itself under a name other than the Ethics committee as it has no ethics and morality left. Instead of asking questions pertinent to the subject, the Chairman exhibited a preconceived bias by maliciously and clearly in a defamatory way questioning me, so much so that 5 of the 11 members present walked out and boycotted the proceedings in protest at his shameful conduct,” she said.
(With inputs from agencies)
