The Trinamool Congress continues to remain tightlipped on the cash-for-queries charges brought against its MP Mahua Moitra with some senior leaders privately communicating party supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s views that she should be left to “clean the mess she has created, if at all she has created it”.
And as a measure to do so, Moitra on Tuesday filed a defamation suit against BJP MP Nishikant Dubey who had written letters to two Union Ministers and Speaker Om Birla charging her with accepting bribes from one business conglomerate in lieu of asking questions against its rival group: In this case the Adanis.
A senior party leader and a State Cabinet Minister said all the party leaders were expected to follow the “austere lifestyle and valued principles of Mamata,” and if anyone “deviates” from that then “it is for that person to explain her conduct… the party will not take any responsibility”.
Earlier Dubey had alleged that Moitra had taken bribes from a business house to ask questions in the Lok Sabha against its rival the Adani group.
Dubey claimed “if the claims are found to be true,” then it “constitutes a serious criminal breach of trust as well as a violation of India’s national security.”
The TMC MP, however, put up a brave front saying she is ready for any kind of probe and iterating that all the allegations leveled against her were malicious and untrue.
The Speaker is known to have referred the matter to the Ethics Committee.
Moitra on Tuesday filed a defamation case against BJP Dubey before the Delhi High Court. A Supreme Court advocate has also been made a party in the suit.
The reason behind the top TMC leadership distancing itself from the Moitra case, or in the least not openly backing her are three-fold, insiders say.
Firstly, as a straight-talker, Moitra has often earned the wrath of senior TMC leaders most of whom have no sympathy for her now.
Even party supremo Mamata has on a couple of occasions rebuked her for crossing swords with other leaders or their supporters.
Secondly, the Chief Minister who is desperate to showcase some investment in Bengal post her Singur movement that drove away the Nano car factory of the Tata Motors from the State during the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee regime is not willing to enter into an issue where the Adanis are involved.
“Remember the Adani group has offered to construct a deep sea port at Tajpur in East Midnapore district,” a senior Bengal Minister said, adding Moitra had gone too far across asking questions against them in her bid to politically corner the BJP.
“If Mamata is not happy with her on certain issues this is perhaps the one of them,” said the TMC leader, adding the TMC has privately conveyed to the Adanis that Moitra’s stance would not reflect on what the TMC thought about the group.
And finally when a number of its senior leaders are already in jail in connection with recruitment, coal and cattle scams the Bengal ruling outfit does not want to get embroiled in more number of such issues “particularly when Moitra is not a mass leader and a dispensable leader”, a TMC sympathiser and a political analyst said.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has referred the “bribe-for-query” complaint made by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey against Moitra to the Ethics Committee of the lower House.
Dubey alleges that Moitra accepted “bribes” from a businessman in exchange for posing questions in Parliament. He has urged Birla to establish an “inquiry committee” to thoroughly investigate these accusations. The Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha is presided over by BJP member Vinod Kumar Sonkar.
