TMC leader Mahua Moitra addresses the media with Congress MP Sonia Gandhi and other opposition leaders after being expelled by the Lok Sabha during the Winter session of Parliament, in New Delhi, Friday, Dec. 8, 2023.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Expelled Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Monday breathed fire as she vowed to fight the BJP "inside the Parliament and outside, in the gutter and on the streets" to see its "end" while warning that such actions cannot shut her up and do away with raising Adani issue.
Making her remarks, which she said was the “speech which I was not allowed to make in the House”, with top Opposition leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and other MPs in attendance, she said she has been found guilty of breaching a code of ethics that does not exist and that there was no evidence of cash or gift given to her.
She said she is 49-years-old and “will fight you for the next 30 years”.
Sonia, who clapped and shook hands with her as she finished her remarks at the 'Makar Dwar' of the Parliament, and other MPs walked with her to the Gandhi Statue in Parliament where Opposition MPs staged a protest against her expulsion following a motion moved by the government.
"If this Modi government thought that by shutting me up, they are going to do away with the Adani issue, let me tell you this, this kangaroo court has only shown to the whole of India that the haste and the abuse of due process you have used demonstrates how important Mr Adani is to you. And to what length you will go to harass a single woman MP into shutting her into submission," Mahua said.
"I am 49 years old and for the next 30 years, I will fight you inside the Parliament and outside; in the gutter and on the streets...We will see the end of you...This is the beginning of your end...We're going to come back and we're going to see the end of you...," she said.
While questioning the competence of the Ethics Committee to take action against her, she said the 17th Lok Sabha has indeed been historic, as it saw the passage of women's reservation bill, but it has also presided over the “most tenacious witch-hunt of one of 78 women MPs, a first-timer, a single woman with no political lineage, from a far-flung constituency on the Bangladesh border.”
It also saw the "weaponisation of a Parliamentary Committee", which was set up to serve as a "moral compass" but that now "abused egregiously to do exactly what it was never meant to do". It is now being used to bulldoze the opposition and become another weapon to force them into submission, she said.
"The findings are based solely on the written testimonies of two private citizens whose versions contradict each other in material terms, none of whom I was allowed to cross-examine. One of the two private citizens is my estranged partner who with malafide intention masqueraded as a common citizen in front of the committee. The two testimonies have been used to hang me, they are polar opposites to each other," she said.
She said the complainant claimed she accepted cash and consideration from a businessman to ask questions in furtherance of his commercial interests but the businessman's suo motu affidavit says she pressured him to upload questions to further her agenda.
"Recommendation of expulsion is solely on the ground that I shared my Lok Sabha login credentials. There are no rules whatsoever to govern the sharing of logins. As the hearing of the Ethics Committee demonstrates, all of us MPs are conveyor belts to get questions from citizens, the public, and to voice that in Parliament," she said.
"Tomorrow the CBI will be sent to my house I am sure. They will harass me for next six months, but I would like to ask what about the Rs 13,000 crore coal scam of Mr Adani that CBI and ED have not looked at," she added.