New Delhi: CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury on Monday appeared to question the urgency behind the Ethics Committee of Parliament taking up cash-for-query allegations against Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra and said the main point remains the “questions raised against Adani enterprise”.
Asked about the charges against the TMC MP, Yechury said he would not comment on the probe being undertaken by the Ethics Committee.
“I don’t know what the evidence is. The committee is probing it,” he said.
“When I was in Parliament, the Ethics Committee never met so suddenly and in such an alert manner… I have been a member of the Ethics Committee at least for 10 years,” Yechury told reporters.
“The Ethics Committee must have many cases before it, why did they take this up? Because the question is on Adani, that is the main point. It is because Adani enterprise is involved,” he alleged.
“Do people not take gifts… Do we not know… 10 people were suspended in Lok Sabha for cash for questions,” he said.
In 2005, a sting operation by the online news site Cobrapost showed 11 MPs accepting cash in exchange for raising questions in Parliament.
Yechury said normally one should not share their parliamentary portal login ID and password with anyone, but added, “As far as we know official PAs of MPs have their login”. He said giving it to outsiders is not right.
Moitra has been at the centre of a political storm after BJP MP Nishikant Dubey wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla alleging Moitra took bribes from businessman Darshan Hiranandani to target the Adani Group.
He cited a letter he received from advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, who is Moitra’s former partner.
The Ethics Committee of Lok Sabha is looking into the complaint and Dubey and Dehadrai had given their “oral evidence” to the panel on Thursday.
Moitra has dismissed the charges against her while admitting, in remarks to the media, that she shared her parliamentary portal login details with Hiranandani in connection with typing questions on her behalf as he has long been a friend.
She has, however, asserted that it was meant just to help her and rejected any quid pro quo.
The TMC MP has alleged that the Adani Group is behind the “bogus” charges due to her strident criticism of the business conglomerate and the government’s alleged support to it.
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