In October 2023, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey accused her of accepting bribes from an alleged business rival of Adani group for asking questions in the Lok Sabha, which led to the expulsion.
Trinamool Congress candidate Mahua Moitra secured a victory on Tuesday, June 4 in the Lok Sabha elections defeating BJP's Amrita Roy by a margin of 56,705 votes from Krishnanagar constituency in West Bengal. Moitra, who had been expelled from Parliament in December 2023 due to cash-for-query allegations, garnered 6,28,789 votes against Roy's 5,72,084 votes.
In October 2023, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey accused her of accepting bribes from a business rival of Adani group for asking questions in the Lok Sabha. Dubey alleged that Mahua raised the questions targeting Adani Group and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the behest of businessman Darshan Hiranandani, who purportedly provided gifts to Mahua in return.
The allegations led to a significant political uproar, prompting a Lok Sabha ethics panel probe that ultimately found her guilty and recommended her expulsion. Her Lok Sabha membership was then revoked, and a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case was registered against her. She has dismissed these allegations as baseless and politically motivated, vowing to return to Parliament after securing re-election. “I am 49 years old, I will fight you for the next 30 years, inside parliament, outside parliament, in the gutter, on the street,” she had said.
In response to the ridicule she was subjected to for carrying a Louis Vuitton handbag in Parliament, Moitra carried three handbags of the same brand during her appearance before the parliamentary ethics committee. BJP's Shehzad Poonawalla had dubbed her 'Marie Antoinette'—a reference to the last Queen of France known for her perceived indifference to the plight of the poor. She had also alleged that the ethics panel had asked her the “most disgusting, invasive, private details” about her personal life, which had no relation to the hearing.
You shut the door. We broke the wall down. pic.twitter.com/wZuMmjV4hO
— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) June 5, 2024
A video clip of Moitra discreetly moving her handbag away from cameras while her colleague Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar discussed the rising cost of living had gone viral, sparking debate on social media. In response to the criticism, Moitra, a former investment banker, posted photographs with the bag and quipped about Prime Minister Modi, tweeting, “Jholewala fakir in Parliament since 2019.”
