As the annual religious and cultural Durga Puja celebrations in West Bengal came to an end on Vijayadashami day, Cyclone ‘Hamoon’ put the state’s coastal regions in danger. This yearly natural disaster contributed to the tempest that had been brewing for the previous two weeks around Mahua Moitra, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) member from Krishnagar.
Trinamool, which is always ready to play the victim and accuse the Centre of misusing its agencies when frauds involving the state are investigated, remained silent while accusations swirled around the so-called “cash-for-query” scam. West Bengal has withdrew its general consent for the CBI to investigate crimes, joining the other states in this move. The Calcutta High Court, which uses these agencies as its arm, is in charge of overseeing all CBI and Enforcement Directorate investigations in the state.
Four days ago, the silence was broken—not voluntarily, but as a result of media inquiries. Speaking to television cameras, Trinamool Congress spokesman Kunal Ghosh smiled as he said, “Trinamool Congress has nothing to say about the Mahua Moitra matter. The party won’t respond to it in any way.
Ghosh made a suggestion that Mahua Moitra should provide clarifications. Ghosh never speaks without Mamata Banerjee’s permission. There was an inherent risk of affirmation in his denial.
Derek O’Brien, the party’s Rajya Sabha leader, made it clear that the Trinamool will make a “appropriate decision” after the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee took up the BJP leader Nishikant Dubey’s complaint against Moitra two days after Ghosh decided to wink at the Mahua Moitra scandal. O’Brien claimed that the Ethics panel was the “right forum” for looking into the situation and that Moitra had been advised to present her case there.
The Trinamool brass did not stop here. A day after O’Brien’s unequivocal claim, Kolkata Mayor and West Bengal Minister Firhad Hakim appeared to soften on Moitra and support her claim that the accusations were made to “silence” her in parliament. Hakim quickly clarified that he was only expressing his “personal view,” not the party’s, in his statement.
The leader of Trinamool in the Lok Sabha, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, chose to remain silent regarding the MP who is a member of this House. Leaders of the West Bengal BJP seized on the discrepancy right once and claimed that the Trinamool was split on the issue.
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Amit Shah, JP Nadda, Dharmendra Pradhan, and Tejaswi Surya, key BJP leaders who visited Kolkata during the Durga Puja celebrations, were also silent on Moitra while Mamata Banerjee and her party stayed silent. Their attention was diverted. Pandals for Durga Puja are renowned for having distinctive themes. A BJP councillor arranged the Subodh Mullick Square Puja pandal, which was constructed to resemble the Ram temple that is about to be constructed in Ayodhya. This year, it gathered the biggest crowds.
It’s also important to note Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Congress, who may believe he owns the rights to “exposing the Modi-Adani nexus” due to his stoic quiet. Apart from Tejaswi Yadav of the RJD and Sanjay Raut of the Shiv Sena (UBT), no one from the opposition INDIA alliance has defended Mahua Moitra.
The political class appears to have been stunned into silence by the revelations made by attorney Jai Anant Dehadrai, also known as Moitra’s “jilted ex.” Nishikant Dubey escalated the allegations, and businessman Darshan Hiranandani confirmed them in an affidavit submitted to the Indian Consul General in Dubai, where he resides.
The Trinamool party is battling several con artists. The party is suffering from allegations of corruption in the hiring of teachers, selections for municipal offices, the smuggling of coal and cattle (to Bangladesh). It appears that it is unwilling to include the Mahua Moitra scandal on the list.
The accusation of Nishikant Dubey will now be investigated by the Ethics Committee, a 15-member committee made up of seven BJP and eight opposition members. By the end of the month, the Delhi High Court will pick back up on the defamation case Moitra brought against Dubey, the lawyer-whistleblower Dehadrai, and the media outlets that broke the story. Due to ethical concerns, Moitra’s attorney was forced to recuse herself from the case, necessitating the cancellation of the initial hearing.
The Moitra scandal is a first in India’s parliamentary history. A media sting operation revealed the cash-for-query scam of 2005, which resulted in the resignation of a Rajya Sabha member and the expulsion of 10 Lok Sabha MPs. A thorough investigation should be conducted into the Dehadrai claims, which allege that a member of parliament’s password was compromised, allowing a businessman to directly write and submit questions on the Lok Sabha web.