New Delhi, Oct 19 (IANS): Dubai-based businessman Darshan Hiranandani has said that Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra provided him her Parliament login and password to post the questions directly on her behalf when required.
Certain information was shared with me, based on which I continued to draft and post questions using her Parliamentary login whenever needed, Hiranandani said in a sworn affidavit.
"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 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 secretarial and logistical help for her travels within India and to different parts of the world.
"I could ill-afford to displease her. Many a times I felt that she was taking undue advantage of me and pressurising me to do things I didn't want to, but I had no choice, because of the aforementioned reasons," the Dubai-based businessman said.
"Since this matter involves me directly and has snowballed into a political controversy with the Parliamentary Privilege Committee and the judiciary also now seized of the matter, I consider it incumbent upon me to state the facts, in public interest, through this sworn affidavit," Hiranandani said.
"I know Moitra since I met her at Bengal Global Business Summit 2017, when she was a West Bengal MLA and designated to engage with visiting industrialists at the Summit. In my interactions with her at the Summit, I found her to be knowledgable, expressive and outspoken. We exchanged contact details and remained in touch ever since. Over a period of time she has been a close personal friend of mine," Hiranandani said.
"In the course of my interactions with her, I found her to be a bright intellectual and one of the public representatives that thoroughly understands both the economy and business matters. I believe she found me to be intelligent... probably another reason for our close friendship”, he added.