‘Cash for query’: Lok Sabha ethics committee report on Mahua Moitra to be tabled today. Top points

A report of the Lok Sabha’s Ethics Committee, which recommended the expulsion of Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra in a ‘cash-for-query’ case is listed for tabling in the lower house of Parliament during the ongoing winter session on Friday.

The committee report was earlier listed in the agenda of the Lok Sabha for December 4 but was not tabled. The revised list of business for Friday issued by the Lok Sabha secretariat has listed the ethics committee report as agenda item number 7.

Top points on ethics committee report on Mahua Moitra:

Opposition parties have demanded a discussion in Parliament on the panel’s recommendations before a decision is taken on Mahua Moitra. “If the report is tabled, we would insist on a full-fledged discussion as the draft was adopted in two-and-a-half minute,” Bahujan Samaj Party MP Danish Ali told reporters on Thursday.

At a meeting on November 9, the ethics committee headed by Vinod Kumar Sonkar adopted its report recommending Moitra’s expulsion from Lok Sabha over the cash-for-query allegation.

The 500-page draft report was adopted by a 6:4 majority last month.

Six members of the panel, including Congress MP Preneet Kaur who had earlier been suspended from the party, voted in favour of the report. Four members of the panel belonging to opposition parties submitted dissent notes.

Media reports claimed that the draft report on Moitra’s cash-for-questions case reveals that she visited the UAE four times from 2019 to 2023 while her Parliament login credentials were accessed several times. “On 47 occasions, her member portal login credentials were accessed from Dubai,” news agency ANI quoted a source who cited the draft report of the ethics committee.

Nishikant Dubey of the BJP had written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla against Moitra, accusing her of asking questions in Lok Sabha to target the Adani Group at the behest of businessman Darshan Hiranandani in exchange for gifts.

However, several leaders of the opposition, including Danish Ali and Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury have opposed the report.

The opposition members termed the report a “fixed match” and said the complaint filed by Dubey, a BJP Lok Sabha member, which the panel reviewed, was not supported by a “shred of evidence”.

Moitra can be expelled only if the House votes in favour of the panel’s recommendation.