Mahua Moitra, a member of the Trinamool Congress, has responded in-depth to the signed affidavit by businessman Darshan Hiranandani that supported BJP lawmaker Nishikant Dubey’s allegations that she received cash and gifts for asking certain questions in Parliament. Due to the document’s absence of official letterhead and notarization, Moitra voiced doubt about its validity, claiming that a well-known businessman like Darshan Hiranandani would not generally sign such a significant document on plain white paper without possible outside pressure.
“The affidavit is written on plain white paper and is neither notarized or on business letterhead. The Lok Sabha member questioned why one of India’s most esteemed and well-educated businessmen would sign a letter like this on white paper without being threatened with a pistol.
The letter’s contents were described as a “joke” by Moitra, who also asserted that the affidavit was written by “some half-wit in the PMO who doubles as a creative writer in the BJP’s IT cell” because it contained glowing praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani while implicating a number of political rivals and investigative journalists in her alleged corruption.
“Cyril Shroff served on the SEBI committee in a complete conflict of interest and is known as Gautam Adani’s “samdhi.” The government aggressively pursues both Shashi Tharoor and Rahul Gandhi. The administration is constantly being exposed by investigative journalist Sucheta Dalal, she said.
According to Moitra, the government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is using the leaked affidavit as part of a larger plan to discredit her and draw attention away from urgent issues about the Adani Group. She said that the government was trying to frighten her family members by threatening them with investigations by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
“The PMO gave Darshan and his father 20 minutes to sign this letter handed to them before holding the figurative pistol to their heads. They were threatened with the complete shutdown of all of their operations, she wrote, pointing out how dependent his company was on government permits and the huge sums of money he had invested in BJP-run Uttar Pradesh.
“The PMO delivered the draft of this letter, and he was compelled to sign it. And the press was instantly informed of it. According to the TMC MP, this is in exchange for the government not opening a CBI inquiry or not hitting their firms harshly.
Despite the unfortunate circumstances, she said, “it is completely understandable that Darshan (a dear friend) would need to consider what is at stake for him here, specifically the continuation of his family businesses built up over decades and the fate of thousands of employees, and succumb to pressure and sign this.”
According to an affidavit, Darshan Hiranandani
The CEO of the real estate-to-energy company Hiranandani, Darshan Hiranandani, said on Thursday that the TMC leader chose to target Gautam Adani in order to “malign and embarrass” Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose pristine reputation allowed the opposition no chance to criticize him.
Hiranandani, who confirmed to HT over WhatsApp that he had released the statement, acknowledged that he had given Moitra information on which she could base questions criticizing the Adani Group; that she had also received information about this from others; that he had given her “expensive luxury items” and paid for the “renovation of her official” bungalow; and that she had given him access to her Parliament login and password so he could “post the questions directly on her behalf.”
This week, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and Moitra’s ex-partner and attorney Jai Anant Dehadrai said that Moitra had requested favors from Hiranandani in order to raise issues in the House of Representatives.
The Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has sent Dubey’s complaint to the Parliament’s Ethics Committee.
