Months after she was expelled from the Lok Sabha following the 'cash-for-query' case, Mahua Moitra will seek re-election from her Krishnanagar seat in West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress MP was expelled from the lower house after a hearing of the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee. Ms Moitra won the Krishnanagar seat in 2019 by a margin of over 65,000 votes.
Here are some facts about Mahua Moitra:
1) Ms Moitra, a former vice president at JPMorgan Chase in London, began her political innings in 2009 with the Congress. A year later, she joined the Trinamool Congress. She made her electoral debut in the 2016 Bengal elections and was elected from the Karimpur constituency.
2) In 2019, Mahua Moitra contested and won her first Lok Sabha polls from the Krishnagar seat. She defeated BJP's Kalyan Chaubey, a former football player, by over 65,000 votes. She made a rousing speech on her Lok Sabha debut which saw the Opposition MPs thumping their benches in approval in parliament.
3) Over the next four years, she emerged as a trenchant critic of the NDA government both inside and outside parliament. In 2021, Mahua Moitra was also appointed as Trinamool's Goa in-charge and was tasked with overseeing preparations for the 2022 Goa Legislative Assembly election.
4) In December 2023, Mahua Moitra was expelled from the Lok Sabha following the allegations of 'cash-for-query'. She was accused of taking bribes, including Rs 2 crore in cash and "luxury gift items", from businessman Darshan Hiranandani, in exchange for asking questions critical of the government in parliament. Her party, however, has stood by her.
5) Ms Moitra was born on October 12, 1974, to a family of tea planters in Assam. She studied mathematics and economics at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. After completing her studies, she started working at JPMorgan Chase in New York.