Cash-for-query case: Ethics panel report on Mahua Moitra in Lok Sabha on Monday
Setting the stage for a fiery start to the winter session of Parliament, the Lok Sabha ethics panel’s report on Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra will be tabled on the very first day of the session on Monday.
In the list of business uploaded on the Lok Sabha website, the matter is mentioned at item number 5 as per which ethics committee chairman and BJP MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar and his party colleague Aparajita Sarangi will lay the report a few minutes after the start of the session.
The committee had on November 8 adopted a report recommending Moitra’s expulsion from the lower House over ‘cash-for-query’ charges.
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While six members had voted in favour of the report, including Congress’s rebel MP Praneet Kaur, four opposition MPs had opposed it.
Sources said after laying of the report, junior parliamentary affairs minister Arjun Ram Meghwal is likely to move a motion to accept the report and adopt the recommendations of the committee, which, as per sources, has recommended Moitra’s expulsion. Sources said the opposition may ask for a discussion, which, however, is the sole discretion of the speaker who may allow it or adopt the motion without any debate.
Since the BJP has a majority, adoption of the report is a legislative formality, paving the way for the Trinamool MP’s expulsion. This is the first time since the ethics committee came into existence in 2000 that it has recommended expulsion of a parliamentarian. The privileges committee has taken such steps, including recommending expulsion of 10 MPs in the 2005 cash-for-query scam.