'Who do you speak to at night?': Mahua Moitra says she was subjected to humiliating questions at Lok Sabha ethics panel hearing

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra has said she was subjected to humiliating questions at the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee's hearing on "cash-for-query" allegations against her.

In an interview with India Today, Moitra said it was the most unethical, derogatory behaviour towards her by the chairperson of an Ethics Committee.

"The chairperson was reading out from a script that was handed to him. His line of questioning was filthy. His entire line of questioning right from the beginning was derogatory, it was complete 'vastraharan'," she said in the interaction.

Moitra has been accused of asking questions, which were keyed in through her parliamentary account, at the behest of businessman Darshan Hiranandani. It was also alleged that she shared her login credentials with the Dubai-based businessman. The complaint against Moitra was filed by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who said the MP took bribes for asking questions in Parliament.

Mahua Moitra, meanwhile, said earlier that the only things she had received from Darshan Hiranandani, the CEO of the Hiranandani Group, as gifts were "one scarf, one lipstick and one eye shadow".

"The only things I have received from Darshan as a close personal friend was one scarf for my birthday present three or four years ago, then he called from the Dubai airport asking if I wanted something," Mahua stated.

In her interaction on Thursday, Moitra said she was personal questions like, "Who do you speak to at night? Can you provide the details on who are the calls to?" She further said that the chairperson asked things like 'you call so and so a dear friend, does his wife know about this'.

Moitra said that there no questions related to the alleged gifts and alleged log-ins from her Parliamentary account and claimed that she was asked general questions not related to the ongoing cash-for-query row.

Opposition members of the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee, along with Moitra, walked out of the meeting on Thursday, alleging that the panel's chairperson Vinod Kumar Sonkar had asked personal and unethical questions.

In a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Moitra said instead of asking questions pertinent to the subject, "the chairman (BJP MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar) exhibited a preconceived bias by maliciously and clearly in a defamatory way questioning me".  

"I write to you in great anguish today to update you on the unethical, sordid, and prejudiced behaviour meted out to me at the hearing of the Ethics Committee by the Chairman. I have been subjected to the proverbial 'vastraharan' by him in the presence of all members of the Committee," Moitra said in her strongly worded three-page letter.

Also Read: 'Subjected to 'vastraharan' in the name of Ethics Committee hearing,' alleges Mahua Moitra