TMC insiders say Mamata and Abhishek Banerjee are not favourably disposed towards Mahua Moitra since ‘she is not a team player’.
For the past four years, the name Mahua Moitra would conjure the image of an angry young woman railing against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Gautam Adani conglomerate inside the precincts of the Lok Sabha where she was a first-time MP representing Krishnanagar constituency of West Bengal. Now, as the cash-for-query row hits her hard with damning allegations from those close to her, the 49-year-old MP suddenly finds herself friendless.
The Trinamool Congress, which sent her to Parliament after a stint in the state Assembly, has adopted a silent, wait and watch approach after BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, with whom Mahua Moitra has had numerous run-ins, alleged that she took “bribes” to ask questions in Parliament.
Though Moitra promptly rejected the charge as false, it transpired that the allegations were contained in a letter that her lawyer friend had written to the CBI asking for a probe. In that letter, lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai had alleged that Moitra’s written questions to the Lok Sabha were either at the bidding of Darshan Hiranandani, the Dubai-based CEO of the Hiranandani Group, or that Hiranandani was himself posting the questions from Moitra’s official Lok Sabha email ID since she had given him the login ID and password. In return, Dehadrai alleged, Mahua Moitra had received gifts of luxury items and cash from Hiranandani.
Feisty Mahua dismissed the charges as those based on allegations made by a “jilted ex”. But days later, an affidavit signed by Darshan Hiranandani surfaced. It was a confession from Hiranandani that he indeed had been posting questions from Moitra’s account and that she had taken favours from him in many forms on many occasions.
Hiranandani admitted that he gave Moitra information on the basis of which she could pose questions attacking the Adani Group; that she received information from others too on this; that he gifted her “expensive luxury items” and underwrote the “renovation of her official” bungalow; and that she provided him with her Parliament login and password so that he could “post the questions directly on her behalf”.
As the damning details spilled out, Mahua tried to disprove them. In her defence, she wrote on X: “Three days ago (16.10.2023), the Hiranandani Group put out an official press release stating that all charges levelled against them were baseless. Today (19.10.2023) an ‘approver affidavit’ has been leaked to the press. This ‘affidavit’ is on a white piece of paper with no letterhead and there is no official origin aside from a press leak.
“A few questions need to be asked urgently:
“1. Darshan Hiranandani has not been summoned by the CBI or the Ethics committee or indeed by any investigative agency yet. Who then has he given this affidavit to?
“2. The affidavit is on white paper and not on official letterhead or notarised. Why would one of India’s most respected/ educated businessmen sign a letter like this on white paper unless a gun was put to his head to do it?”
Even as she tried to fight the allegations, the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC maintained a stoic silence. “It is for Mahua to disprove the allegations being brought against her. The party has nothing to do with it,” said a veteran party MP.
Party spokesman Kunal Ghosh, usually quick to fire off on any issue, said: “We are watching the evolving situation. However, we as a party have a no-compromise stand on corruption. Our leader Mamata Banerjee has a zero-tolerance approach towards corruption and we follow that. We have nothing to say.”
Privately, senior Trinamool leaders say that some of the adjectives used and allegations made by Darshan Hiranandani against Mahua are “absolutely true”. “That she is very ambitious and is in a hurry to garner attention is quite obvious. This has led to disquiet within the party in the past as well,” a multi-term Trinamool Congress MP told The Sunday Guardian.
TMC insiders say party leader Mamata Banerjee and heir apparent Abhishek Banerjee are not favourably disposed towards Mahua Moitra since “she is not a team player.” “If you see the questions she has asked in Parliament, you will not see any question that is in line with the stand of the party,” said another party MP. “Politicians have to follow some Laxman Rekha as far as relations with other parties are concerned. Mahua’s take ‘no prisoners approach’ is not helping us,” she added.
Observers say that Mamata Banerjee, battered by the CBI and ED investigations into multiple scams in West Bengal in which her close relatives are being scanned, cannot afford to stand by Mahua Moitra. In any case, Mamata Banerjee has rebuked Moitra many times in the past, blaming her for the chronic infighting in Nadia district of which Moitra’s constituency Krishnanagar is a part. Given this backdrop, it was anyway doubtful if she would get a ticket in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, say party insiders close to Mamata Banerjee.
BJP leader Rajarshi Lahiri, whose family ties with Krishnanagar go back a few hundred years, said: “As an MP, Mahua Moitra has done nothing for Krishnanagar. Nobody knows where her MPLAD funds have gone even though an expenditure of Rs 12 crore has been shown. If investigated, this will throw up another scam.”
Souvik Chakraborty, a 26-year-old inhabitant of Krishnanagar, said: “We only see her on stage at some political programmes. But we have never seen her attend to our problems. Roads here are like the surface of the moon, the piped drinking water stinks and even a simple overbridge over the railway tracks could have been taken up. As an MP, she could have done a lot to improve the condition of the constituency, but she has done nothing. Now we know what she was up to in the past so many years.”
Senior BJP leader and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, said: “The allegations (against Moitra) are serious. The Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha should do an immediate investigation of this because the duration of Parliament is going to end in the next few months.”