Mahua Moitra to be Disqualified? Ethics Panel to Table Report on MP’s Expulsion, ‘Ruckus Expected’

The Lok Sabha ethics committee report on the cash-for-query allegations against TMC leader Mahua Moitra will be tabled on December 4 on the first day of the winter session of Parliament. The MP is likely to be disqualified while the INDIA bloc is expected to stage a walkout in protest, sources said.

The item was in the list of business for the winter session, for which the agenda papers were circulated by the Lok Sabha Secretariat on Friday. The parliamentary panel’s chairperson, BJP MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar, will lay on the table of the House the first report recommending Moitra’s expulsion.

According to top sources, the government will put forward a motion to expel Moitra, who has been accused of taking bribes in exchange for asking questions against business tycoon Gautam Adani. This is expected to create a ruckus in the House as opposition parties may unite in her support, sources added.

Sources further said the Congress is in touch with Moitra and has conveyed to her that they need to stand as one on this as it is a political witch hunt.

The ethics committee adopted the report at a meeting on November 9. Six members of the panel voted in favour of the report, including Congress MP Preneet Kaur, who had earlier been suspended from the party. Four members of the panel belonging to opposition parties submitted dissent notes.

The opposition members termed the report a “fixed match” and said the complaint filed by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, 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.

The winter session of Parliament is scheduled to continue till December 22.

(With PTI inputs)