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Terming as "very serious" the cash for query charge against Mahua Moitra, BJP leader Priyanka Tibrewal on Thursday said the onus was on the Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP to convince the ethics committee during her appearance on October 31 that she had done nothing wrong.
Also a practising senior advocate at the Kolkata High Court, Tibrewal said the charges could attract "severe" punishment if deemed "anti-national" in nature. "Mahua Moitra will have to go and face all the accusations that have been levelled against her. She has to go and face all the questions and the onus is on her to convince the ethics committee that she had done nothing wrong. If she is able to do that, then we'll understand and acknowledge that she was wrongfully charged. If not, and the charges are established, she should be severely punished for indulging in such immoral conduct," the BJP leader told ANI. Taking a further dig at the TMC MP, the BJP leader accused the firebrand leader of "compromising" with national security and called for an "inquiry" into the allegations. She argued that being a member of the Parliament, she was supposed to ask questions on behalf of the people of the entire country, but instead "she asked questions to benefit a particular industrialist". "Not just that, she compromised national security. An inquiry needs to be conducted in this regard. These charges are very, very serious. There is a definite whiff of a conspiracy. As to whether the conspiracy was anti-national in nature or not is for the ethics committee to decide. And if found to be so, it should attract severe punishment under the law," she added. Meanwhile, advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, who the TMC MP named in the defamation suit against BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who initially levelled the cash-for-query allegation against her, on Thursday appeared before the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee to submit oral evidence against Mahua Moitra. "I told the truth before the committee. All members of the committee went about the process of asking questions in a cordial manner. I gave honest answers to all the questions that were put to me," Dehadrai, an advocate, told ANI. On Thursday, Dubey also appeared before the panel. "I will give all the information that the Committee asks me to provide. I will appear before the committee whenever it asks me to. I will submit all the documents, the truth is in the documents," Dubey told reporters. The Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha will call the Trinamool Congress MP on October 31, the chairman of the panel, Vinod Sonkar, said on Thursday. The committee is headed by Sonkar, a BJP MP, and also includes Vishnu Datt Sharma, Sumedhanand Saraswati, Aparajita Sarangi, Rajdeep Roy, Sunita Duggal, and Subhash Bhamre of the BJP; Ve Vaithilingam, N Uttam Kumar Reddy, and Preneet Kaur of the Congress; Balashowry Vallabbhaneni (YSRCP); Hemant Godse (Shiv Sena); Giridhari Yadav (JD-U); P R Natarajan (CPI-M); and Kunwar Danish Ali (BSP). The BJP MP earlier wrote to the Lok Sabha Speaker, alleging the involvement of Moitra in the 'cash for query' scandal. He claimed that he held evidence shared by Dehadrai, which corroborates the charges against the TMC MP. In response to Dubey letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker, the Trinamool MP said she would welcome a probe by the Speaker after he had dealt with alleged breaches of privilege by other BJP MPs. The charge by Nishikant Dubey followed Mahua Moitra's dig at him after Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw assured the BJP MP that his complaint on misuse of Parliament login credentials would be looked into. In a post on X on Tuesday, Mahua said, "Who is lying? 2 days ago Fake Degree Wala said NIC had already given details including "Dubai" logins to the probe agency. Now Ashwini Vaishnaw says NIC will give info in future IF asked by LS or Ethics Comm. BJP is welcome to do a hit job on me but Adani+Godda perhaps not the best strategists!" (ANI)
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