TMC MP Mahua Moitra playing victim card over Ethics panel deposition: BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi

The BJP panel member says Ms. Moitra is spreading a fake narrative; claims the TMC MP spoke at length about her private life and then used “filthy language” against the chair when questions were posed

File photo of Aparajita Sarangi. | Photo Credit: The Hindu

BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi on Friday accused Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra — under investigation on charges that she took cash to ask questions in Parliament — of trying to create a “fake narrative” and “playing the victim card”. She was commenting on Ms. Moitra’s walkout from her deposition to the Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha on Thursday.

The deposition ended abruptly, when Ms. Moitra and Opposition members of the panel walked out of the meeting, citing what they termed unethical and puerile questions about the TMC MP’s private life, allegedly posed by the panel’s chairman, BJP MP Vinod Sonkar.

Ms. Sarangi, who is also a member of the panel, refuted Ms. Moitra’s allegations, saying that her behaviour had “gone beyond all limits of decency”.

‘Fake narrative’

“We had invited Mahua Moitra and she was supposed to answer our questions. Chairman asked a few questions limited to the affidavit submitted by Darshan Hiranandani. So there was no question of going beyond the limits or rather the contents of the affidavit. Mahua Moitra spoke for more than one hour and she talked about her personal life in which I don’t think anybody was interested,” Ms. Sarangi said.

“And then suddenly thereafter there were certain questions pertaining to the contents of the affidavit posed by the chairman where [Ms. Moitra] actually lost her cool and used all kinds of filthy language against the chairman and other members of the committee. She was very arrogant in her demeanour. She was very rude and she has been trying to create a fake narrative and misleading the people of the country by playing a victim card,” she added.

Ms. Moitra has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla protesting her treatment by the committee, and comparing it to the disrobing of Draupadi in the Mahabharata.