Mahua Moitra's Expulsion from the Lok Sabha: Yet Another Significant Shift towards "Opposition Free" Putinist Version of" Democracy"

[Sukla Sen]

<https://youtu.be/VNukHlXCPS0>

The original charge was cash-for-query.

The investigation by the Ethics Committee has failed to dig out any "cash". Nor the specific ("cash-worthy"?) "queries" have been flagged -- or at least publicised.

So, no proven "cash". We also don't know which are those "queries"?

So, subsequently, was added: National Security!!!

Login details for the parliamentary website were shared with an Indian citizen residing in a foreign land having at least one foreign national as a relation!!!

Two questions logically follow.

I. What (sort of) state secrets are hosted on that website!?

II. What are the safety measures to protect the site and which specific rules have been breached by the act of "sharing"!

No clear answer.

In any case, this is for the designated state agencies to examine. None of the business of the Ethics Committee.

It bears mentioning that in the earlier cases of expulsions, there were smoking guns. Definitive proofs of money changing hands. Quite unlike the present one.

That Shekhar Gupta tries to obfuscate as best as he can.

He also hides the fact that Darshan Hiranandani had put out three statements in quick succession. First, he, via a press statement, denied his involvement in the case. Then gave an unsigned affidavit admitting his involvement; but the version is distinctly different from that of Dehadrai. Then the same version he got notarised, after considerable noise. Hiranandani has also admitted/claimed that he knows Moitra since 2017 (when she was a debutant MLA and hardly known) and they were friends. There's no legitimate reason why sundry gifts, in keeping with his financial station, should be considered extraordinary.

Addendum:

I. Here's an utterly funny, and yet highly significant, interview wherein the interviewee, the one alleged to have given the money and other stuff to Moitra in order to have her ask questions to torment Adani so as to promote his own competing business interests, though visibly on edge, doggedly refuses to budge even an inch from the prepared script: "I stick to my affidavit and nothing more to add." Only words are shuffled a wee bit. The other two lines that he keeps repeating is that (i) his (unfortunate) "entanglement" in the affair is an error of judgement on his part -- implying that instead of being an active player he was actually a passive victim (entangled by Moitra?) -- and (ii) he'd fully co-operate with all the Indian investigative authorities.

<https://youtu.be/nsPU6av76mI>.

II. Mahua Moitra press conference, post-expulsion: <https://twitter.com/BrutIndia/status/1733131819187646471>.

III. The full debate in the Lok Sabha on the Ethics Committee report: <https://youtu.be/DkaINmJXA44>.

(Especially relevant: <https://youtu.be/gicJckGGySw>.)

IV. An analysis by Rajdeep Sardesai: <https://www.youtube.com/live/Szmc4uJr7p0>.

V. A summary of the story till before actual expulsion: <https://groups.google.com/.../c/oOAzedWb5n0/m/rGE6OI_yAAAJ>.

Aa

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