NEW DELHI: At least four Opposition MPs on Thursday walked out of a Lok Sabha Ethics Committee meeting, accusing its chairman Vinod Sonkar of posing personal and “filthy questions” against Trinamool Congress (TMC) party parliamentarian Mahua Moitra, who is facing a cash-for-query probe.
Firebrand Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and opposition MPs walked out of the Parliamentary Ethics Committee meeting over the cash-for-query issue and raised questions over the manner in which the meeting was conducted. However, the committee hit back saying that she did not cooperate and went on to avoid answering more questions.
Ethics Committee Chairman Vinod Sonkar said Ms Moitra did not cooperate during her cross-examination and walked out to avoid facing questions. Opposition members also made angry allegations and suddenly walked out of the meeting to avoid answering more questions. “Objectionable words were used against the functioning of the panel and against me.” Aparajita Sarangi, another panel member, said Ms Moitra behaved angrily and arrogantly when asked about Darshan Hiranandani’s affidavit.
Opposition MPs alleged that the committee asked Ms Moitra “personal and unethical questions”, and that one MP leaked details of the meeting to the media while it was going on.”What kind of meeting was this? They are asking all kinds of dirty questions,” Ms Moitra told reporters, clearly upset, as she and the opposition MPs left the room. He said, “They’re picking up anything. Any nonsense. ‘You have tears in your eyes’. Do I have tears in my eyes, can you see the tears?” Ms Moitra said, placing her hands on her cheeks. Asked why he walked away from the meeting, another opposition MP said, “It became too much”.
Earlier, in her statement to the committee, Ms Moitra said a “dangerous personal relationship” prompted her to file a complaint over the alleged cash-for-query. There was apparently a commotion during the cross-examination after lunch. Ms Moitra has called Supreme Court lawyer Jai Ananth Dehadrai, who filed the complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), as her “jowned ex”.
Sources said a large part of her statement before the committee was about her relationship with Mr Dehradun as she appeared to blame him for the leaks and allegations. BJP MP VD Sharma asked him to answer the core part of the allegations and not make it about personal relations being strained.
Parliament’s Ethics Committee chairman and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar on Thursday handed over to all members a copy of the report submitted to him by two Union ministries on the complaint filed against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra. Although the Chairperson had given him this report declaring it ‘confidential’, some of its details had been posted by the complainant Dubey on X (formerly Twitter) a day earlier. “The report contains some specific data related to the complaint that we as members were not aware of until it was shared with us today. For example, it said Moitra’s MP account was accessed 47 times from Dubai, where businessman Darshan Hiranandani is based. However, Dubey had tweeted that information only yesterday, leaving us to wonder how did he know such specific inputs from a report the Chairperson told us was confidential? 

In the last meeting of the committee on October 26, Sonkar had told reporters that he had sought assistance from the Ministry of Home and Information Technology in investigating the allegation against Moitra. Dubey, along with a lawyer, Jai Anand Dehadrai – whom Moitra described as a ‘bent former’ – had filed a complaint with the committee alleging that the TMC MP had taken bribe from Dubai-based businessman Darshan Hiranandani to ask questions in Parliament. The complaint said that Moitra had shared the password of the official email of her Lok Sabha account with Hiranandani and claimed that this compromised ‘national security’.
Moitra, a vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had hit back at Dubey, saying her complaint was because he had questioned her in Parliament about a fake degree which she allegedly submitted to the Election Commission of India along with her election affidavit. Was.
At the end of the meeting which lasted for almost three hours, not only Moitra but also five members of the opposition parties walked out. “This was because he was asked irrelevant, indecent and unethical questions. A member of the Ethics Committee said that we objected that such questions should not be asked by the Ethics Committee. Asked what those questions were, the member said, “She was asked which hotel in Dubai she had stayed in during her travels and with whom she had stayed… questions like that. He said, “The opposition members found the questions asked to a woman member of Parliament on the official platform very objectionable and they left.”

According to another member, “When the meeting started, the chairperson started asking questions written on paper. What was surprising was that even after saying ‘no’ to the primary question, some parts of the questions already written on that paper were also asked to him, as if it was a task given to him which he had to compulsorily complete. Was. Then, some members objected to the meeting starting with the chairperson raising questions. Another member said, “Throughout his statement, he had highlighted that the complaint was based on a personal fight

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