Mahua Moitra sends legal notice to former personal friend Jai Anant Dehadrai, MP Nishikant Dubey, media for cash for queries allegations

Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Mahua Moitra has sent a legal notice to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey, Advocate and former boy friend Jai Anant Dehadrai and a host of media organisations for allegedly defaming her with claims that she accepted bribes to ask questions in parliament..Dubey had written to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha Om Birla on Sunday alleging that Moitra agreed to field questions in parliament on behalf of business tycoon Darshan Hiranandani, in exchange for cash and gifts..Some of these questions were related to the Adani Group, which is a competitor of Hiranandani, it was claimed..Dubey's complaint stemmed from a letter he received from Dehadrai, who had filed a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) claiming to have "irrefutable evidence" that Moitra took bribes from Hiranandani..Dehadrai claimed that Moitra gave complete access to her online Lok Sabha account to Hiranandani, who misused the same to post Parliamentary Questions of his liking. These questions amount to 50 of the 61 questions Moitra has asked during her tenure as an MP, Dehadrai alleged. .50 questions out of 61.This alleged criminal conspiracy was hatched with a view to:i) Further Hiranandani's business interests;ii) Target Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and other government functionaries;iii) Target Gautam Adani to whom Hiranandani had lost energy and infrastructure contracts..Dehadrai claims to have witnessed phone calls between Moitra and Hiranandani through which the conspiracy was put into action.He also claims that he saw Moitra receive a number of gifts and cash from Hiranandani, and witnessed calls wherein the quid pro quo between the two was established..In her legal notice filed through Panag & Babu Law Offices, Moitra has vehemently denied all these allegations. She flagged a number of tweets and news reports on Dubey's complaint, saying,"In such tweets, videos and News Reports being carried by Noticee Nos. 3 to 21 (media houses) contain and propagate the defamatory allegations levelled our Clients which are ex facie false, misconceived and designed to curry political mileage and extract personal vendetta and do not have an iota of truth to the same.".Moitra has said that over the years, she has clashed with Dubey on account of their differences of opinion on various issues. She claims that in March 2023, she "rattled" Dubey by questioning the authenticity of his educational qualifications and disclosures in his election nomination papers..As regards Dehadrai, Moitra stated that she had a falling out after sharing a personal friendship with him for several years. After this, Moitra claims, Dehadrai sent her several vile, malicious and vulgar messages, trespassed into her official government residence, and stole some personal possessions, including her pet dog, which he later returned..Several vile, malicious and vulgar messages....stole some personal possessions, including her pet dogMoitra on Dehadrai.She allegedly filed police complaints against Dehadrai for these incidents, which she later withdrew on his request. However, the legal notice stated,"Noticee No. 2 (Dehadrai) immediately zapped back to old ways and continued his misguided and malicious pursuit of vendetta against our Client. Noticee No. 2 reached out to several prominent journalists and attempted to convince them to run stories based on wild, vindictive, fictitious and entirely imaginary allegations about our Client.".As no reputed journalist carried Dehadrai's allegations, he approached Moitra's political opponents with the claims, the notice stated. To this end, he made "wild, false, baseless, vindictive, malicious and unfounded allegations" against Moitra in his letter to Dubey. .The legal notice also clarifies that Moitra has never accepted any remuneration or cash or gift or benefit of any kind in relation to the discharge of her duties as a member of the Parliament, including but not limited to, the questions raised by her in Parliament..Thus, Moitra has demanded that Dubey and Dehadrai withdraw the false allegations made against her and issue a public apology for making the defamatory and malicious claims.She has also urged X, Google and Facebook, as well as fifteen media companies to take down all posts, tweets, articles and videos published on their respective platforms in relation to Dubey's allegations against her..Adani Group has in its press release today said that there are "groups working overtime to harm their goodwill and market standing"..The BJP MP claimed that Moitra committed serious breach of parliamentary privilege and committed an offence under Section 120-A (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.