A day after she was asked to vacate a room at a circuit house in her Krishnanagar constituency, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Saturday wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, seeking intervention to safeguard the dignity and security of women parliamentarians.
Moitra alleged that the administration in West Bengal’s Nadia district ordered her to leave the state-run guest house late on Friday night, despite having initially allotted her accommodation there.
She said a crowd gathered outside the circuit house and raised slogans, including “Jai Shree Ram”, after she declined to leave.
According to Moitra, she arrived at the circuit house at around 6.15 pm. At 9.47 pm, she received a call from the Nadia additional district magistrate asking her to vacate the premises. She said she later received a WhatsApp message at 10.52 pm containing an order stating that reservations could not be honoured because of “annual cleaning”.
In her letter to Birla, Moitra said asking a woman MP staying alone to leave her allotted accommodation late at night raised serious concerns about her rights and security.
She urged the Speaker to urgently examine the matter and take steps to uphold the dignity of women MPs, arguing that efforts to increase women’s representation would be meaningless unless elected women representatives were adequately protected.
Moitra also approached the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), describing the incident as a threat to democratic norms and alleging that a crowd was gathered outside the circuit house.
Several Opposition leaders expressed support for Moitra. TMC Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien questioned the developments in West Bengal, while Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav asked whether the incident amounted to a breach of parliamentary privilege.
CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas also condemned the incident and called on Birla to intervene, describing the late-night eviction order as “unacceptable and deplorable”.
Moitra, the TMC MP from Krishnanagar, has faced several protests and confrontations in Nadia since her election. In recent months, she has alleged that BJP workers targeted her during incidents involving protests outside a district court and a TMC office. The BJP has denied involvement and attributed one such incident to internal factionalism within the TMC.
The latest incident comes days after the Supreme Court declined to entertain Moitra’s plea against a Calcutta High Court direction in a case concerning alleged remarks, observing that an MP should not be afraid of facing political backlash.
(With inputs from PTI)