National News

Mahua Moitra Cash For Query Scam: Sucheta Dalal Claims She Never Knew Moitra Nor Interacted With Her, But Her Tweets Show Otherwise

October 20, 2023
The Commune

There seems to be a black moon rising for TMC MP Mahua Moitra and financial journalist Sucheta Dalal. The trouble has now mounted for both as Moitra is now neck-deep in a cash-for-queries scam after businessman Darshan Hiranandani turned approver and admitted to paying her cash and luxury gifts in exchange for specific questions he wanted her to ask in the Lok Sabha. 

Darshan Hiranandani’s statement also mentions Sucheta Dalal, a well-known Indian financial journalist and the Managing Editor of Moneylife, a financial news and information platform. She had shot to fame after she broke the Harshad Mehta Scam in 1992.

Ironically, the investigative journalist who had once reported on financial scams and corporate frauds finds herself embroiled in a scam. 

Darshan Hiranandani in his signed affidavit to the CBI had said, “Ms Moitra, in her endeavour, was getting help from other people like Sucheta Dalal, Shardul Shroff and Pallavi Shroff, who were also in touch with her, and who were feeding her with all kinds of unverified information relating to Sh. Gautam Adani and his companies. Clearly, there were others who were also assisting her in this targeted attack.”

He basically accused Sucheta Dalal of working with Mahua Moitra to tarnish the reputation of Gautam Adani.

Popular OSINT handle ‘The Hawk Eye’ has pointed out that ‘MoneyLife’ portal, a supposed news outlet co-founded by Sucheta Dalal, had published more than 50 articles targeting businessman Gautam Adani and the Indian conglomerate ‘Adani Group.’

‘The HawkEye’ pointed out a normative pattern in the headlines of articles published by the news portal against Gautam Adani. ‘MoneyLife’ frequently relies on unsubstantiated questions raised by the Congress party to target the Adani group. In fact, Dalal’s portal ‘Money Life’ has a section dedicated to the Indian conglomerate and said it acted more like a mouthpiece of the Congress Party.

After it emerged that Sucheta Dalal was involved in posing questions to Mahua Moitra, the former denied the same.

In fact, in a tweet, Dalal claimed, “The very fact that he has named me makes this whole letter and his ‘solemn’ statements a farce — I don’t know Mahua Moitra and I think she can confirm it. The question of helping her simply does not arise, NOR did she EVER reach out and ask for any help either!”

 

 

 

To counter the serious accusation, Sucheta Dalal in a tweet said, “This is completely stupefying — I do not know @MahuaMoitra personally at all – I may have retweeted some of her stuff. I don’t know Pallavi Shroff and I used to know #ShardulShroff 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. This is one time the govt ought to help prevent this kind of slander by some crooks!!“

But this was countered immediately by defense analyst Abhijit Iyer-Mitra who sent out a tweet where it was as clear as day that Sucheta Dalal was in touch with Mahua Mahua despite denials.

On 27 February 2023, Suchet Dalal had shared an article of Business Standard about the Essar Group forming the ‘Essar Energy Transition’. 

In her X post, Sucheta Dalal asked if any MP would be willing to raise question in Parliament about recovery of loan write offs to Essar Group entities. 

Responding to Sucheta Dalal’s tweet, Mahua replied “Send me info on this please Sucheta. Thanks” to which Sucheta said “Will do”.

This is in direct contradiction to what Sucheta Dalal had claimed in her recent tweet, that she never knew Mahua Moitra nor had she interacted with the TMC MP. 

However, after her conversation with Mahua was exposed she is still in denial of having known her or sent her any information. She said that Essar had filed a criminal case against her for a column she wrote for Indian Express and named on Ravi Muthreja for bringing her name into the current case. She alleged that Ravi Muthreja was moonlighting with Essar and Adani Groups and believes him to be the reason for dragging her name in to the current controversy.

On 15 October 2023, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey accused Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra of accepting cash and gifts from businessman Darshan Hiranandani in exchange for specific parliamentary questions. He formally complained to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, seeking an inquiry and Moitra’s immediate suspension.

Dubey alleged corruption and misconduct, citing bribery between Moitra and Hiranandani for questions favoring Hiranandani’s business. He claimed that 50 of Moitra’s 61 questions aimed to benefit Hiranandani, often targeting rival conglomerates like the Adani Group. He likened her actions to the 2005 “cash for query” scandal.

Moitra responded by inviting ED and CBI investigations into her alleged money laundering after they investigated Adani’s financial matters. She raised allegations of a coal scam involving the Adani Group.

Darshan Hiranandani is the CEO of Hiranandani Group, a Mumbai-based real estate giant diversifying into various sectors, including technology-driven consumer services under Tez Platforms.