The feisty Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra cannot be put down or silenced; she must be thanked for that. After a BJP MP Nishikant Dubey raised a controversy about her alleged cash-for-query tactics, the Trinamool MP could easily have retired hurt. Instead, she took on the might of not only the BJP but also its cheerleaders in both the real and virtual worlds. There is an unmistakable perception, not without basis, that Moitra is being brought down to size for her unrelenting attack not only on Prime Minister Narendra Modi but on his proximate relationship with billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani. Moitra has repeatedly called this out on the floor of the House.

Be that as it may, Moitra has stood up to the allegations against her with her usual spirited self, defending that sharing her coordinates on the LS portal with her staff was standard practice, and so on. Her party colleagues have been rather silent as are many others. At the meeting of the LS Ethics Committee, which called her for questioning and oral evidence before it probed Dubey, Moitra claimed that the chairperson Vinod Kumar Sonkar, BJP MP, read out “undignified questions” which focused on her personal details and seemed, in her words, “an orchestrated cheerharan designed to humiliate” her. She and Opposition MPs on the panel walked out.

This is unfortunate and condemnable. The Committee has a solemn duty to not only get to the truth but also appear fair and just. Instead, it appears to have acted like a bunch of overgrown boys who have been given the license to demean and debase a woman, that too an elected representative. This is yet another reminder that rank misogyny and sexism exist in every cranny and corner of our society, in our hallowed institutions such as the Parliament, and women are seen as fair game all over. It is never a less humiliating world for women — within or outside the hallowed halls. What is as shameful as the panel’s behaviour is the stunning silence from the women of the BJP who are otherwise loud about their gender agenda. Speak up, women.

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