Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Saturday expressed solidarity with Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra after the Nadia district administration allegedly tried to make her vacate a circuit house in Krishnanagar. He said the government must protect her if a crowd is targeting her, instead of asking her to leave government accommodation.
Moitra, the MP from Krishnanagar, has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla seeking his intervention and has also threatened to move court over what she called harassment. She alleged that a large crowd gathered outside the circuit house on Friday night, raising ‘Jai Shree Ram’ slogans after she refused to leave.
Tharoor said all democrats must stand in solidarity with Moitra in her travails. “If the price of her convictions is that a mob is baying for her, it is the duty of the government to provide her security, not to ask her to vacate government accommodation!” the Thiruvananthapuram MP said.
He added that “such elementary considerations should not be spelt out in a democracy, least of all on the day that marks the culmination of our freedom struggle”, using the hashtag ‘Stand With Mahua’ on X.
In her letter to Birla, Moitra said, “I kindly request you to urgently look into the matter and take necessary steps to set an example and ensure the dignity of women parliamentarians across the country.”
She added, “Any Women’s Reservation Bill seeking to bring in more women is a matter of jest unless your august office can protect the 74 women who have battled great odds to enter this House.”
Moitra said she had moved into the circuit house in Krishnanagar for an overnight stay following a Parliament session and that, as an MP, she was entitled to stay there. She alleged that district authorities were pressuring her to leave in the middle of the night with the intent to harass her.
Describing the sequence of events, she wrote, “I went into the room of the Circuit House around 6.15 pm. The staff showed me to my usual room, which was made up and ready. Tea was served in my room at 7 pm, and dinner was served at 9.20 pm in the room.”
She added, “At 9.47 pm, I received a call from the additional district magistrate of Nadia, who informed me that I needed to vacate the premises. When I asked him the reason, he said that the ‘order had come from the top’, and he was only conveying the message.”
Moitra also said that at 10.52 pm she received a WhatsApp message from the district administration carrying a copy of an order stating that no new reservations were to be honoured at the circuit house. She had earlier posted the order, issued by the Nezarath deputy collector of Nadia, on her social media accounts.
The document said, “In view of facilitating the annual maintenance cum upkeep and cleaning arrangements, the Nadia circuit house (at Krishnanagar) shall not be available for service from the evening of August 14, 2026, till further orders.” It added, “Reservations already confirmed prior to 13th August, 2026, only shall be exempted from the general purview of this order.”
Moitra claimed that nobody informed her about any booking embargo either when she made the booking or when she checked in. The row over her stay has now drawn support from Tharoor, while Moitra has sought the Speaker’s intervention and raised the issue of the safety and dignity of women MPs.
– Ends
Published By:
India Today Web Desk
Published On:
Aug 15, 2026 21:51 IST
