The Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha which has investigated BJP MP Nishikant Dubey’s allegations against fellow MP and Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra, is likely to recommend her expulsion from the Lower House, The Indian Express reported on Thursday. The panel is scheduled to meet at 4 PM today to adopt its report of its probe into the cash-for-query accusation against Moitra.
Following the adoption of the panel’s report, the report will then be sent to the Lok Sabha Speaker.
Also Read: Cash-for-query row: Lokpal has ordered CBI probe against Mahua Moitra, says Nishikant Dubey
The draft report of the panel is also learnt to have pulled up BSP MP Danish Ali for violating Rule 275 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha which deals with the confidentiality of proceedings of Parliamentary committees. Ali’s name figures among others from the Opposition who had objected to panel chairman Vinod Kumar Sonkar’s line of questioning at the last meeting earlier this month.
Six Opposition MPs, including Moitra, had walked out of the committee’s meeting on November 2. The MPs included Danish Ali, Congress’s Uttam Kumar Reddy and V Vaithilingam, CPM’s P R Natarajan and JD(U)’s Giridhari Yadav. At the meeting later today, Opposition MPs are likely to submit dissent notes against the findings of the 15-member panel where the NDA has a majority.
Also Read: Mahua Moitra appears before Lok Sabha ethics panel in cash-for-query row
On Tuesday, Moitra claimed that the meeting of the panel was deliberately deferred from November 6 to November 9 to clash with a Congress member’s nomination from Telangana to have fewer Opposition members. Notably, Congress MP from Nalgonda Uttam Kumar Reddy said he has written to the committee chairman to postpone the November 9 meeting as he has to file his nomination in Telangana.
On Wednesday, Nishikant Dubey, the complainant claimed that the Lokpal had ordered a CBI probe against Mahua Moitra in the cash-for-query scandal. Responding to Dubey’s claim, Moitra said that the CBI first needs to file an FIR into the “Rs 13,000 crore Adani coal scam”. “For media calling me — my answer: 1. CBI needs to first file FIR on ₹13,000 crore Adani coal scam. 2. National security issue is how dodgy FPI owned (inc Chinese & UAE ) Adani firms buying Indian ports & airports with @HMOIndia clearance. Then CBI welcome to come, count my shoes,” she wrote on X.
The allegations against Moitra surfaced after Dubey’s written complaint to the Lok Sabha Speaker, accusing the TMC MP of accepting bribes to protect the interest of the Hiranandani Group. Dubey also alleged that Moitra shared her Lok Sabha login credentials with Darshan Hiranandani aloowing him access to post questions on her behalf. The committee also examined Dubey and lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai regarding the complaint against Moitra.
In a sworn affidavit sent to the panel, Hiranandani claimed that Moitra had provided him her Parliament login and password so that he could “post the questions” directly “on her behalf when required”. Moitra admitted in an interview with The Indian Express that she gave Hiranandani her Parliament login and password details but denied taking any cash from him, as alleged by Dehadrai in his complaint to the CBI.