Cash for query case: CBI conducts searches at TMC leader Mahua Moitra's residence

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Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Mahua Moitra including her residence in West Bengal in connection with the alleged cash-for-query case, said officials. Teams of the central probe agency reached Moitra's Kolkata residence and other cities on Saturday morning for a search operation, the officials said as quoted by PTI. They stated that CBI registered an FIR against the former TMC MP on Thursday on the directives of the Lokpal which has instructed the agency to file a report within six months.

The CBI had also been asked to file periodical reports regarding the status of the investigation every month. “After careful evaluation and consideration of the entire material on record, there remains no doubt regarding the fact that the allegations leveled against the Respondent Public Servant (RPS), most of which are supported by cogent evidence, are extremely serious in nature, especially in view of the position held by her.

Therefore, in our considered opinion, a deeper probe is required to establish the truth," Lokpal said as quoted by ANI. In December, Mahua Moitra was expelled from the Lok Sabha for “unethical conduct".

She has challenged her expulsion in the Supreme Court and will again be in the hustings during the upcoming general elections as a TMC candidate from the Krishnanagar seat in West Bengal. The anti-corruption ombudsman Lokpal, which received the results of its preliminary investigation into accusations made against Moitra by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, gave the CBI the directives.