Cheap slander agenda is part of badly constructed hit job, says Trinamul MP Mahua Moitra

 ‘I don't need any cash to stand up to Mr Adani and Mr Modi.... I quit a well-paying job and my record of public service is there for everyone to see’

Devadeep Purohit, J.P. Yadav ,Calcutta, New Delhi, 26.10.23 : Trinamul MP Mahua Moitra on Wednesday reiterated that the cash-for-query charges levelled against her by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey would be "disproved" as they were "not true", a day ahead of the Parliament ethics committee meeting on the allegations.

Moitra, the MP of Krishnagar in Nadia, said she expected the committee to call her soon to present her side.

"I don't need any cash to stand up to Mr Adani and Mr Modi.... I quit a well-paying job and my record of public service is there for everyone to see. This cheap malicious slander agenda is part of a badly constructed hit job. This will be disproved because this is not true," Moitra told The Telegraph on Wednesday evening.

BJP parliamentarian Dubey and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, whom Moitra has described as a "jilted ex", are scheduled to record their statements before the committee, headed by BJP MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar.

Some other members of the 15-member committee — heavily loaded with BJP lawmakers — are Subhash Bhamre (BJP), Aparajita Sarangi (BJP), Danish Ali (BSP), Preneet Kaur (Congress), P.R. Natarajan (CPM) and Giridhari Yadav (JDU).

"Following the principles of natural justice, I should have been called first, before the complainant.... But I hope that they will call me very soon," said Moitra, who has been claiming that her fearless campaign against the Adani group is the reason behind the "false charges" against her.

Moitra has been battling two charges — that she has passed on her House email login ID to a businessman friend so he could raise parliamentary questions on her behalf, and that she had received pecuniary benefits in exchange for asking questions on behalf of the businessman's group. Sources in Trinamul that this newspaper has spoken to consider the second allegation "far graver".

A day ahead of the crucial hearing, the social media spat between Dubey, who has been in the line of Moitra's fire over the veracity of his academic credentials, and the Krishnagar MP intensified.

Responding to Moitra’s fresh “fake degree wala” jab at him, Dubey said the main issue was not his degree but whether the Trinamul MP asked questions in Parliament for money.

“The question is not about Adani, degree or theft. It is about misleading the country and corruption,” the BJP MP from Godda in Jharkhand posted on X. He used the hashtags “degree wali desh beche” (the degree holder sells the country) and “chand paise ke liye jamir beche” (sold conscience for money).

Repeating his earlier allegations, Dubey asked: “The question is about Parliament’s decorum, national security and about the MP’s propriety, corruption and criminality. She has to answer if NIC (National Informatics Centre, which develops IT tools for the government) mails were accessed in Dubai, whether questions were asked for money and who covered expenses for trips abroad. She has to answer if she took the permission of the Lok Sabha Speaker and the external affairs ministry for her trips.”

The fresh spat — after a couple of days of lull because of Durga Puja — began on Tuesday after Dubey posted a letter from information technology minister Ashwani Vaishnaw in reply to a complaint lodged by him earlier this month against the investment banker-turned-politician. In his reply, the IT minister had said: “NIC will promptly respond to any instructions in this matter from the Lok Sabha Secretariat. NIC will also extend full cooperation to the Committee on Ethics in investigation of this matter.”

The BJP sought to project the letter as a big victory and declared that a “dharm yudh” (righteous battle) had started against an MP for putting the “security of the country in danger”.

Moitra promptly hit back, recalling how Dubey had earlier claimed that the NIC had already completed the probe and found that the Trinamul MP’s Parliament login ID was accessed from Dubai when she was in India.

“Who is lying?” she asked. “2 days ago Fake Degree Wala said NIC had already given details including ‘Dubai’ logins to the probe agency. Now @AshwiniVaishnaw says NIC will give info in future IF asked by LS or Ethics Comm,” the Trinamul MP posted, adding: “BJP welcome to do hit job on me but Adani+Godda perhaps not best strategists!”.

“Amused to hear of @AshwiniVaishnaw letter to Fake Degree Wala promising support in ‘probe’ against me! Still waiting for @HMOIndia & @Ministry_CA to probe Farji Dubey’s illegal entry into airport ATC room last year with kids,” Moitra wrote in another post.

The BJP MP responded by repeating the charges Dubey has levelled against the Trinamul member.

While the entire saffron ecosystem has gone all out against Moitra, the Trinamul leadership — except urban development minister and Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim, who publicly came out in her support — has been silent on the issue.

A source in Trinamul said the allegations against Moitra had come at a wrong time for the party, which had made its presence felt in Delhi with the Abhishek Banerjee-led protest movement against the Centre’s “step-motherly treatment” of Bengal.

“We made our presence felt in Delhi with Abhishek’s movement, which was the first-of-its-kind in the capital.... And now see what kind of questions we are facing,” said the senior leader, who has been with Mamata Banerjee since she broke away from the Congress.

This discomfort in the Trinamul camp and the uncertainty about the outcome of the probe are believed to be the reasons behind the silence of the party.

CPM state secretary Md. Salim virtually issued a statement of support for Moitra on Wednesday.

At a news conference in the afternoon — mainly to issue statements against what RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said on Tuesday, besides various aspects of the saffron regime’s running of the nation — Salim questioned the BJP’s response to the Moitra controversy.

“Why such a cacophony? Because Adani’s name has been dragged into this. Adani, Modi, Gujarat, everything is being brought forward. Everything gets expedited the moment Adani’s name is dropped. Rahul Gandhi gets disqualified as MP,” said Salim.

“The (Parliamentary) ethics panel, asleep for a decade since the Narada scam, started probing this overnight. Very selective,” he added.

The CPM state secretary brought up the Moitra issue on his own at the news conference.

“It is clear as daylight that all of this is Adani-sponsored,” he said.

“It is most unfortunate that her party is not standing by her in this… (Moitra is) such a vocal parliamentarian,” added Salim.

Additional reporting by Meghdeep Bhattacharyya