TMC WATCHES SILENTLY AS MAHUA DRAMA UNFOLDS

TMC insiders say Mamata and Abhishek Banerjee are not favourably disposed towards Mahua Moitra since 'she is not a team player'.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

For the past four years, the name Mahua Moitra would conjure the image of an angry young woman railing against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Gautam Adani conglomerate inside the precincts of the Lok Sabha where she was a first-time MP representing Krishnanagar constituency of West Bengal. Now, as the cash-for-query row hits her hard with damning allegations from those close to her, the 49-yearold MP suddenly finds herself friendless.

The Trinamool Congress, which sent her to Parliament after a stint in the state Assembly, has adopted a silent, wait and watch approach after BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, with whom Mahua Moitra has had numerous run-ins, alleged that she took "bribes" to ask questions in Parliament.

Though Moitra promptly rejected the charge as false, it transpired that the allegations were contained in a letter that her lawyer friend had written to the CBI asking for a probe. In that letter, lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai had alleged that Moitra's written questions to the Lok Sabha were either at the bidding of Darshan Hiranandani, the Dubai-based CEO of the Hiranandani Group, or that Hiranandani was himself posting the questions from Moitra's official Lok Sabha email ID since she had given him the login ID and password. In return, Dehadrai alleged, Mahua Moitra had received gifts of luxury items and cash from Hiranandani.

Feisty Mahua dismissed the charges as those based on allegations made by a "jilted ex". But days later, an affidavit signed by Darshan Hiranandani surfaced. It was a confession from Hiranandani that he indeed had been posting questions from Moitra's account and that she had taken favours from him in many forms on many occasions.