New Delhi: Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra and BSP MP Danish Ali, walked out from the Parliament Ethics Committee meeting on Thursday.

Vinod Sonkar, accused Moitra of using “unparliamentary language”

Mahua Moitra, who was asked to depose before the panel in connection with allegations of cash-for-query, accused the ethics committee of asking “filthy questions”.

“Is this an ethics committee?…reading from a script,” Mahua Moitra said.

Moitra also snapped at a reporter, saying, “There are no tears in my eyes…making up any rubbish…’tears in your eyes’. Have you seen my eyes? Are there tears in it?”

Meanwhile, the chairman of Parliament Ethics Committee, Vinod Sonkar, accused Moitra of using “unparliamentary language”.

“Instead of giving answers, she (Mahua Moitra) got angry and used unparliamentary language for the Chairperson, and Committee members. Danish Ali, Girdhari Yadav and other Opposition MPs tried to accuse the committee and walked out…The committee will sit and decide further action…,” Sonkar said.

The opposition MPs who walked out of the meeting said that the panel asked “unethical questions” to Moitra.

“We found the ethics committee chairperson’s questions to Moitra undignified and unethical,” Congress MP and panel member N Uttam Kumar Reddy was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

“The whole line of questions it seems that he’s (Parliament Ethics Committee Chairman) acting on somebody’s behest. It is very, very bad. For two days we have been asking him some things…They are asking her (Mahua Moitra) where are you travelling? Where are you meeting? Can you give us your phone records?…” Congress MP Uttam Kumar Reddy said.

During her walkout, she was joined by BSP’s Danish Ali, who seconded her stand on the panel’s cross-examination. He said, “Raat ko kisse baat karti hai, kya baat karti hai. Yeh sab pucha (Who do you talk to at night, what do you talk. They asked this),” Ali said.

Janata Dal (United) MP Giridhari Yadav said that the panel “did not have the right to ask personal questions” to Mahua Moitra.

Mahua Moitra pleaded innocence to the allegations levelled against her and told the parliamentary committee that the charge against her was motivated by ill-feeling of advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai after she broke her personal relations with him, as per the PTI report.

Meanwhile, BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi said that Mahua Moitra’s behaviour was “condemnable” and accused her of using “unparliamentary words” for the members of the ethics panel.

“The proceedings of the Parliamentary Standing Committee are confidential by nature. So the very thing that she (TMC MP Mahua Moitra) did was wrong. They all came out and they all said things about the committee, about the goings on within the committee, it was wrong. She should not have done that. These things are very confidential,” Sarangi said.

The BJP leader added, “The conduct of Mahua Moitra was condemnable. She used unparliamentary words for our chairman and for all the members of the committee. So, the chairperson of the Committee was asking questions regarding the contents of the affidavit by Hiranandani and she did not want to answer them. And then they created a ruckusâ€æ”

Shortly after Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra walked out of the parliamentary Ethics Panel meeting on the cash-for-query matter, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey said the Trinamool MP had made her “own narrative” of the cross-examination session.

“…I and (Jai Anant) Dehadrai went there as witnesses and Mahua Moitra went as an accused. However, she gave interviews and quoted what happened inside the committee of ethics. She tried to set up a wrong narrative in public. What happened today is the darkest day of parliamentary history…,” said BJP MP Nishikant Dubey.

Jai Dehadrai is a Supreme Court lawyer who, as per Nishikant Dubey, claimed to have “irrefutable” evidence of bribes being given to Moitra.

Dubey’s statement came as several opposition leaders, including Moitra and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Danish Ali, walked out from the Parliament Ethics Committee meeting on Thursday. The meeting was in connection with cash-for-query charges against Moitra, the Lok Sabha MP from West Bengal’s Krishnanagar.

BJP MP Dubey, who had initiated the charges against Moitra said he has enough evidence to establish that Moitra breached the protocols of Parliament. He has now snubbed Moitra’s claims that the panel were shooting “filthy and undignified” questions at her.