‘No comments’: TMC on ‘bribe for questions’ charges against its MP Mahua Moitra

The Trinamool Congress on Saturday refused to comment on the controversy surrounding its Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra, who is accused of receiving bribes for asking questions in Parliament.

“No comments…Regarding this issue, the TMC will not say anything… The related person may answer this, not the TMC party,” the party’s state general secretary Kunal Ghosh told news agency ANI. Another senior TMC leader not wishing to be named told PTI that the party is unwilling to get into a controversy and thus “will be maintaining distance from it.”

Moitra, the sitting Lok Sabha MP from Krishnanagar in West Bengal, is facing serious allegations of receiving bribe in the form of cash and expensive gifts from business tycoon Darshan Hiranandani to pose questions attacking the Adani Group in the parliament.

Earlier in the week, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey had levelled serious allegations against Moitra, citing a letter by lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai, claiming the TMC lawmaker had accepted favours from Hiranandani in exchange for raising questions in Parliament. Moitra filed a defamation suit against them before the Delhi High Court.

In a signed affidavit, Hiranandani had backed charges against Moitra. The industrialist has admitted to having given Moitea information on the basis of which she could ask questions, and that she received information from others too on this.

The industrialist in his affidavit claimed that he gifted Moitra “expensive luxury items” and underwrote the “renovation of her official” bungalow; and that she provided him with her Parliament login and password so that he could “post the questions directly on her behalf”.

Nishikant Dubey’s complaint has been referred to Parliament’s Ethics Committee by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

Vinod Sonkar, the chairman of the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee, had said he had received the sworn-in affidavit from Hiranandani. The TMC MP has raised questions over the credibility of Hiranandani’s affidavit, alleging that it was “drafted by the PMO” and he was forced to sign it after being “threatened” with “total shut down” of his family’s businesses.