Lok Sabha ethics committee adopts report on 'Cash-for-Query' allegations against Mahua Moitra with 6:4 verdict

In a decisive 6:4 verdict, the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee has adopted its report on the 'cash-for-query' allegations against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra. The committee's chief, Vinod Sonkar, announced the results of the vote, revealing that six members supported the report while four members opposed it.

The members on the ethics panel who favored the adoption of the report include Aparajita Sarangi, Rajdeep Roy, Sumedhanand Saraswati, Preneet Kaur, Vinod Sonkar, and Hemant Godse. On the other hand, those who opposed the report are Danish Ali, V Vaithilingam, PR Natarajan, and Giridhari Yadav.

The committee, chaired by BJP MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar, had earlier conducted hearings involving Mahua Moitra, as well as BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who filed the complaint against her, and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai.

The draft report had initially recommended the disqualification of Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra from the Lok Sabha, pending an ongoing probe into the alleged bribe-for-query case. 

Last month, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey leveled serious allegations, claiming that "bribes" had been exchanged between Mahua Moitra and businessman Darshan Hiranandani in exchange for parliamentary questions. Dubey cited a letter from advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, which purportedly contained "irrefutable evidence" of the alleged exchange between Moitra and Hiranandani.

In response, Mahua Moitra vehemently refuted all these allegations, going a step further by sending a legal notice to BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and Jai Anant Dehadrai. She asserted that charges of accepting "any benefit of any kind to perform her duties as a Member of Lok Sabha" were "defamatory, false, baseless, and not supported by even a shred of evidence."