Mahua Moitra assured that her "victory will be the fitting response" to her expulsion from Lok Sabha.Trinamool Congress leader and expelled Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra, who is currently facing heat from central agencies, shared a WhatsApp message from her mother on X on Wednesday, in which her mother is talking about filing the nomination on her behalf.
Moitra posted the screenshot of the text message on X, captioning it, “My mother’s answer to BJP’s daily ED/CBI lovefest. You rock Mummy- the original Sherni!”
The message from her mother read, “Keep a power of attorney ready in my name in case they pick you up I will file the nomination.”
Moitra has been renominated by Mamata Banerjee from Krishnanagar seat. In 2019, she won by a margin of over 60,000 votes, bagging 45 per cent of the total votes polled.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday registered a money laundering case against Moitra and businessman Darshan Hiranandani in the cash-for-query case. The case is based on the first information report (FIR) registered by the CBI. The ED is already investigating Moitra for alleged violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). The CBI had booked Moitra on March 21, two days after the Lokpal, the anti-corruption ombudsman, directed it to investigate the allegations against her.
Moitra rose to prominence during her time in Lok Sabha for her scathing criticism of the BJP-led NDA government and particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She was expelled from the Lok Sabha in December last year after a parliamentary Ethics Committee’s report found her guilty in a ‘cash-for-query’ scandal, initially brought forth by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, who claimed she accepted bribes from businessman Darshan Hiranandani to ask critical questions to the government in Parliament.
A fiery orator, she dubbed the expulsion as a “prefixed match by a kangaroo court” and accused the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of acting as “political agents of the saffron camp”
She assured that her “victory will be the fitting response.”
“My victory would be a fitting response to the conspiracy to expel me and tarnish my reputation,” the 49-year-old politician said.
Moitra, who left her high-flying career as an investment banker at JPMorgan Chase abroad to venture into politics, has often been labelled as an “elitist” by the ruling BJP, which even questioned her lifestyle choices.