Mahua Moitra: TMC MP who ‘won’t cede an inch’

Dubey, who is facing a privileges panel complaint for derogatory remarks against a fellow MP in the recent Special Session of Parliament, has accused Moitra of taking “bribes” to raise questions in Parliament and asked Speaker Om Birla to investigate the same.

The TMC MP has shot back, asking Birla to first probe “the multiple breach of privileges pending against Dubey”.

Earlier this year, Moitra had sought Dubey’s disqualification saying his MBA and PhD degrees were fake.

Her exchanges with Dubey apart, the no-holds-barred MP, in a party that defers to TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee at all times, has set herself out as a leader with a difference.

In her debut speech in her very first term as an MP, Moitra had caused an uproar in the House with a spirited speech on “the seven early signs of fascism”. The Treasury Benches’ attempts to shout her down hadn’t intimidated the MP, who went on for around 10 minutes. By the time she wrapped up, there was thumping approval from the Opposition benches and own party members.

Since then, Moitra consistently figures as the star speaker among the Opposition ranks, especially now that the TMC is under the larger INDIA umbrella. She has also filed petitions in the Supreme Court against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the sedition law

In mid-2022, Moitra would invite FIRs and multiple complaints following her remarks at the India Today East Conclave, on Goddess Kali, in the backdrop of the controversy over Canadian filmmaker Leena Manimekalai’s documentary Kaali. Not just BJP and Hindu groups, even TMC leaders had expressed disapproval. The voices of support, if any, had been largely muted.

Moitra’s entry into politics, and her gradual emergence as this firebrand leader, are both surprise trajectories for those who knew her as she was growing up. Born in Assam to a family of tea planters, she was a bright student who secured a scholarship to pursue a degree in mathematics and economics at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, followed by a high-paying job as a banker in New York and London.

In July 2019, though, giving an address at a school, Moitra had said that she thought about joining public service at her 10th college reunion in 2008. “Do I want to come back at my 20th reunion as another managing director of JP Morgan or do I want to come back having made a difference?” she wondered.

When Moitra took the call and returned to India, the Congress was her first stop. She was, in fact, seen as a Rahul Gandhi pick, leading the ‘Aam aadmi ka sipahi’ booth-level campaign conceived by him in Bengal.

But by 2010, a year before the TMC came to power in Bengal dislodging the Left, Moitra had switched to the party. After a three-year stint as MLA of the largely rural Karimpur constituency bordering Bangladesh, Moitra was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2019 from Krishnanagar. Soon after, she was made the party’s Nadia district president — which was seen as a sign of party chief Mamata Banerjee’s confidence in Moitra. And she has proved that faith right repeatedly in Parliament.

As party leader though, the stint has not been that smooth. In Nadia district, which is part of Moitra’s Krishnanagar constituency, there have been complaints that as district president, Moitra “regularly humiliated senior leaders”. She was subsequently dropped as the Nadia president. In December 2021, Mamata went on to publicly tick Moitra off at an administrative review meeting in Nadia.

In the wake of the Kaali row, Moitra had vigorously defended her remarks, contrasting her faith to the stringent rules as defined by Hindutva. “My statement was one of fact and experience of how Ma Kaali is venerated by her devotees and what she represents to me. Religion is an integral part of our personal lives and it is high time we take this bull by the horns and reassert our right to be able to speak about our beliefs and practices,” she told The Indian Express.

“This is exactly why the BJP has been able to foist their version of Hinduism on us. Hinduism is not their territory and I will not cede an inch,” Moitra had added.

Yet, there are others who say Moitra’s conduct in the House borders on the “immature and impulsive”. In one Session, she had lost her cool over the presiding officer cutting short her speech for overshooting the time limit, and later even tweeted criticising Speaker Birla. The House had condemned her behaviour the next day.

Said a Rajya Sabha MP, “Everyone keeps a distance from her, because MPs feel she is a bit temperamental. Articulate but shrill.”

Moitra shrugs off these labels, even seizes them. “If a man has these qualities, he is a leader, but if a woman has them, she is a b***h. It’s across the board… Now I quite enjoy the tags rather than try and fight them,” she says.