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Darshan Hiranandani, the businessman named in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker Nishikant Dubey’s complaint to the Lok Sabha speaker on Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra allegedly receiving money and gifts for posing certain questions in Parliament, gave a signed affidavit on Thursday that corroborated Dubey’s claims.
Hiranandani — who confirmed over WhatsApp that he released the statement — admitted that he gave Moitra information on the basis of which she could pose questions attacking the Adani Group; that she received information from others too on this; that he gifted her “expensive luxury items” and underwrote the “renovation of her official” bungalow; and that she provided him with her Parliament login and password so that he could “post the questions directly on her behalf”.
READ | Who is this ‘jilted ex’ that Mahua Moitra of TMC refers to?
All of these are charges mentioned, in part or full, in Dubey’s letter, which described the charges as “cash for query”, and which was based on a letter written by a lawyer and former friend of Moitra, Jai Anant Dehadrai to him (Dubey). Dehadrai also wrote to the Central Bureau of Investigation in this regard.
The ethics committee of Parliament is already looking into Dubey’s complaint, and Hiranandani’s letter puts Moitra in a spot. If found guilty, she could be expelled from Parliament.
In a statement released on Thursday night, Moitra denied the charges.
“The affidavit is on white paper and not on official letterhead or notarised. Why would one of India’s most respected/ educated businessman sign a letter like this on white paper unless a gun was put to his head to do it? Why has Darshan not done a press conference and read this out or tweeted it himself or his company put it out? If indeed he has “confessed” to this why is he not releasing it officially rather than through back channel leaks? Every effort is being made to malign me and isolate and scare those near and dear to me. My closest have been threatened with ED and CBI raids… Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor are both people the government targets relentlessly. Sucheta Dalal is an investigative journalist who is always exposing the government,” she said.
Dubey’s letter to speaker Om Birla last Sunday provoked an angry response from Moitra who has sued him, Dehadrai, and several media organisations (including Hindustan Times) for carrying a news report based on the BJP lawmaker’s complaint.
READ | ‘Bribe for questions’ row: Mahua Moitra sues BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, SC lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai for defamation
The Adani Group, too, responded to those charges and said in a statement on October 16 that it proved that “some groups” were “working overtime to harm our name, goodwill and market standing”.
The Hiranandani Group, with interests in real estate, IT, and energy, initially denied its role.
To be sure, Hiranandani’s statement puts the entire onus on Moitra.
“… she thought the only way to attack Sh. Modi is by attacking Sh Gautam Adani and his group as both were contemporaries and they belong to the same state of Gujarat. She was helped by the fact that the rise of Sh. Gautam Adani had created jealousy and detractors among some sections of businesses, politics and media, both within and outside the country.”
While he admits, at least twice, that he sent her information, he also adds that Moitra “received unverified details from several sources, including some claiming to be former Adani Group employees”. This information was shared with him, he adds, and he “continued to draft and post questions using her Parliamentary login whenever needed.”
Hiranandani says in the statement that Moitra received help from “other people like (journalist) Sucheta Dalal and (lawyers) Shardul Shroff and Pallavi Shroff” who were “feeding her with all kinds of unverified information relating to Sh Gautam Adani and his companies”.
Dalal refuted the allegations. “This is completely stupefying — I do not know Mahua Moitra personally at all – I may have retweeted some of her stuff. I don’t know Pallavi Shroff and I used to know Shardul Shroff long ago. I dare anyone to find any links between me and them. Requesting IT minister @Rajeev_GoI to help me get to the bottom of it @AshwiniVaishnaw also please help,” she posted on X.
Hiranandani says Moitra had interactions with several Congress leaders “including Sh Rahul Gandhi on matters related to Adani companies” and that she was in frequent touch with “international journalists from Financial Times, the New York Times, BBC and with several Indian publications”.
FT broke two stories regarding the Adani Group — one on the trail between the group and an individual who ran a company that bought shares of Adani companies and another on the group inflating the price of imported coal — both of which have been cited by Gandhi. The group has denied both reports.
The Congress declined to comment.
“Importantly, she also made frequent demands of me and kept asking me for various favours, which I had to fulfil in order to remain in close proximity with her and get her support. The demands that were made and the favours that were asked included, gifting her expensive luxury items, providing support on renovation of her officially allotted bungalow in Delhi, travel expenses, holidays etc, apart from providing secretariat and logistical help for her travels within India and to different parts of the world”
Hiranandani says he went along because he believed he could benefit from “support in other states ruled by the Opposition” because Moitra “bonded extremely well” with leaders of the Opposition “like Sh Gandhi, Sh Shashi Tharoor and Sh Pinaki Mishra.”
There was no response from Tharoor and Pinaki.
Hiranandani also says in his statement that he could “ill-afford to displease her” and that “many a times I felt that she was taking undue advantage of me and pressurizing me to do things I didn’t want to, but I had no choice.”
Dubey and Dehadrai are scheduled to testify before the parliamentary ethics committee on October 26. In recent years, members submit their questions and notices online on Parliament’s portal.
The last “cash for query” scandal had erupted in 2005. A sting operation by online news site Cobrapost that aired on a private TV channel on December 12, 2005, showed the 11 MPs accepting cash in exchange for raising questions in the Parliament.
On December 24, 2005, Parliament voted to expel the 11 MPs in a historic vote. Pranab Mukherjee, the leader of the Lok Sabha at the time, introduced a resolution asking for expulsion of the members while then PM Manmohan Singh did the same in the Rajya Sabha.
In a detailed response to Hiranandani’s affidavit, Moitra expressed scepticism about the document’s legitimacy due to the lack of official letterhead and notarization, suggesting that a prominent businessman like him would not typically sign such an important statement on plain white paper without potential external pressure.
“The affidavit is on white paper and not on official letterhead or notarised. Why would one of India’s most respected/ educated businessman sign a letter like this on white paper unless a gun was put to his head to do it?” the Lok Sabha member said.
Further calling the content of the letter a “joke”, Moitra said that the affidavit was drafted by “some half-wit in the PMO who doubles up as a creative writer in the BJP’s IT cell” as it contained effusive praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani while implicating various political opponents and investigative journalists in her alleged corruption.
Moitra said the leaked affidavit is part of a broader strategy by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to discredit her and divert attention from pressing concerns related to the Adani Group. She alleged that the government is attempting to intimidate those close to her, including threats of investigations by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
“The PMO held a proverbial gun to Darshan and his father’s heads and gave them 20 minutes to sign this letter sent to them. They were threatened with a total shutdown of all their businesses,” she wrote.