NEW DELHI: Putting an end to the ‘cash-for-query’ row that stretched over two months, Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra was expelled from the 17th Lok Sabha on Friday. Her expulsion follows a report by a Lok Sabha ethics panel, which held her guilty of accepting gifts and favours in return for asking questions in Parliament at the behest of businessman Darshan Hiranandani.
Moitra was expelled through voice vote by the Lower House after Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi moved a motion based on the report of the ethics panel, which was tabled by BJP MP and committee chairman Vinod Kumar Sonkar earlier in the day.
“This House accepts the conclusions of the committee that Mahua Moitra’s conduct was unethical and highly objectionable as an MP. So, it is not appropriate for her to continue as an MP,” said Speaker Om Birla after the motion was adopted. The panel had also recommended a “legal, intensive, institutional and time-bound investigation” into the allegations against Moitra.
Rubbishing it as an unfair trial, a united Opposition, including Congress, JD(U), SP, TMC and several other parties staged a walkout while voting on the motion was underway.
Speaking to the press outside Parliament, Moitra lashed out at the ethic committee saying it had broken every rule in the book, adding there was no conclusive evidence of any money trail or gifts.
“There was no evidence of any cash, any gifts anywhere. The recommendation of expulsion was solely based on the complaint that I shared my login. But there is no rule whatsoever in this regard. The Lok Sabha has presided over the most tenacious witch-hunt of one of the 78 MPs, a first-timer, a single woman, with no political lineage,” said Moitra.
While Opposition MPs rallied behind her in a display of solidarity, Moitra was also accompanied by senior Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi outside Parliament.
Before voting on the motion, the House saw a heated discussion by the Opposition and the Treasury benches, which lasted for half-an-hour. While TMC leaders Kalyan Banerjee and Sudip Bandyopadhyay urged the Speaker to allow Moitra to defend herself on the floor, the latter refused to budge citing a precedent. In the 2005 cash-for-query case, the 11 expelled MPs were not given a platform to defend themselves in the House. The Speaker maintained that Moitra was given the opportunity to put her case across at the panel meeting. Banerjee said “a fair trial is not possible if an affected person is not heard.”
Congress MPs Manish Tewari and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury sought three to four days to study the report. Arguing that the Constitution gives immunity to a House member, Tewari said that the ethics committee can recommend whether a member is guilty or not but it cannot decide the quantum of punishment.