LS ethics committee to call for Moitra's expulsion: Officials

Report on Moitra may recommend expulsion

- Saubhadra Chhatterji

The Lok Sabha ethics committee will recommend the expulsion of Trinamool Congress (TMC) member of Parliament (MP) Mahua Moitra from the Lower House for allegedly sharing her login credentials with a businessman living outside India, an act that the panel found amounted to unethical conduct, officials aware of developments said on Wednesday.

The panel will also suggest that an intense institutional and legal inquiry should be done in a time-bound manner to look into the criminal charges in this case, said the officials quoted above.

The 500-page draft report, which was circulated among the members of the 15-member panel on Wednesday evening, is set to be adopted on Thursday in what is likely to be a stormy meeting.

The report will then be laid on the floor of the Lok Sabha on the first day of the winter session, which is likely to begin on December 4.

Officials with knowledge of the matter said the government will move a motion in the House on the same day to expel Moitra, a first-term lawmaker from Krishnanagar in West Bengal, for the remaining term of the 17th Lok Sabha.

The panel will also ask Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to take some action against Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Danish Ali, who is a member of the ethics committee, for allegedly twisting and moulding the intent of the chairman’s questions to Moitra and allegedly fomenting public sentiments against the panel.

Ali was one of the five Opposition MPs who stormed out of the panel’s proceedings alongside Moitra on November 2, accusing the chair of asking inappropriate and personal questions.