Mahua Moitra - A firebrand leader unapologetic about her fight for secularism

A charismatic leader and a powerful orator, Mahua Moitra is an Indian politician and Member of Parliament elected to the Lok Sabha from the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC). As a spokeswoman for the AITC, Mahua Moitra is one of Mamata Banerjee’s most vocal defenders and a fiery critic of the BJP.

An instantly recognizable figure in elegantly draped sarees and bindis, Mahua Moitra’s brand of unapologetic secularism has not only captured the nation’s attention but also unsettled the opposition leaders who often find themselves at the backfoot.

Family and personal life

Mahua Moitra hails from an upper-middle-class Hindu Brahmin family. She was born to Dwipendra Lal Moitra and Manjoo Moitra on 12 October 1974 in Assam, who also are parents to another daughter.

She was briefly married and not much is known about her ex-husband. Some reports claim his name was Lars Brorson and he was a Scandinavian of Danish origin.

Mahua Moitra is known for her sartorial choices and has a penchant for crisp cotton sarees, oversized sunglasses, and Louis Vuitton handbags that have become her hallmark. Her impeccable sense of style along with her striking personality has helped her to stand out among the normally conservatively and traditionally dressed politicians in India. She is a self-confessed “yoga freak” and likes to keep herself fit.

Education and early career

Mahua Moitra went to school in Kolkata. She graduated in economics and mathematics in 1998 from Mount Holyoke College South Hadley in Massachusetts, United States.

After graduating, she worked as an investment banker for JP Morgan Chase in New York and London. The last position she held was that of Vice-president at JP Morgan Chase in London which she quit in 2008 to enter Indian politics.

Journey to the Lok Sabha

Moitra was certain that she wanted to enter public life even during her days as a student. In one of her interviews on Facebook, Moitra recalled that when she was a freshman at Mount Holyoke, she wrote a letter to her parents saying that she would work in the U.S. and return to India eventually to be in public life. The decision was further cemented when she attended her 10-year college alumni reunion and found that most of her batchmates were successful, but only as bankers enjoying the financial fruits of their labor. All of 30 years old then and wanting to make a difference, she resolved not to attend the 20-year reunion as one more “managing director” at her firm. She immediately quit and came back to Kolkata, much to the shock and surprise of her parents.

In 2008, Mahua Moitra joined the Congress party and served as a co-coordinator of the Youth Congress’s rural empowerment program in West Bengal. She also became one of the trusted aides of Rahul Gandhi in the project "Aam Admi Ka Sipahi". After 2 years with the Congress, she realized first-hand the party’s minimal on-the-ground presence and lack of connect with the people of West Bengal. It is at that point that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has a penchant for bringing young people on board, identified her potential and inducted her into the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) in 2010. After proving herself over the next six years, she was given a ticket to contest from the Karimpur constituency in the 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections. She won the election and was also elevated as the general secretary of the AITC and its spokesperson.

Mahua Moitra was fielded for the 17^th Lok Sabha elections in 2019 and emerged a winner, becoming a first-time MP representing the Krishnanagar parliamentary constituency in West Bengal.

Key Highlights of political life

• In Jan'17, Moitra filed a police complaint against BJP MP and Union Minister Babul Supriyo for insulting her modesty during a television debate. The complaint was later dismissed by the Calcutta High Court.
• In Feb’19, Mahua Moitra gave her maiden speech in the Lok Sabha after becoming an MP that immediately became viral and captured the nation’s attention. Her powerful speech, delivered over constant heckling from government benches, took on the government single-handedly and point-by-point in a manner that was not witnessed in the Lok Sabha for a long time. She pointed to “seven danger signs of early fascism in India” and held the BJP fully accountable for it given its “lust to divide India”. Superficial nationalism and obsession with national security counted among the seven signs. She also took a swipe at the state of the judicial system when she said, “The sacred cow that was the judiciary is no longer sacred. It stopped being sacred the day a sitting chief justice of this country was accused of sexual harassment, presided over his own trial, cleared himself, and then proceeded to accept the nomination to the upper house within three months of retirement, replete with Z+ security cover".

• The Huffington Post noted in Feb 2019 that Moitra is the only politician who has gone to court to stop the BJP government from snooping on social media feeds of people or breaking into their computers and turning India into a surveillance state. She had filed 3 PILs in the Supreme Court in her personal capacity for the same.
• In Dec’20, Mahua Moitra belittled a section of the press by referring to them as "2 paisa worth" leading to the news media deciding to boycott her. The TMC distanced themselves from her comments calling it her personal opinion. Her defense was that it was a comment made to a colleague at an internal party meeting to which the journalist was not invited.
• Three days after the Trinamool Congress declared a thumping victory in the 2021 West Bengal legislative assembly elections, Mahua Moitra published an op-ed in The New York Times titled “I Know What It Takes to Defeat Narendra Modi”, where she accused PM Narendra Modi of “toxic machismo”.

Mahua Moitra on Twitter