Ahead of the upcoming Winter Session of Parliament, access to the questions portal has been restricted to Lok Sabha MPs only, excluding their personal staff, according to sources. No official orders have been issued. The process of filing questions for Rajya Sabha MPs continues as before, with personal assistants also having access.
The Parliament website for both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha was upgraded on August 1. Instead of two different portals — one for ‘e-notices’, to submit questions, notices and private bills, and a separate members’ portal to submit travel bills and other necessities — a single, common portal was launched. Sources said that, till recently, Lok Sabha MPs and their designated personal assistants each had log-in credentials for this portal. Ahead of the winter session, this has been restricted to just the MPs’ registered numbers.
“There are no official orders to this effect. When we called the question branch of Lok Sabha, the officials claimed that this was a fall-out of the Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra’s alleged ‘cash-for-query’ episode,” the personal staff of an Opposition Lok Sabha MP said.
‘Maintain confidentiality’
The Lok Sabha secretariat, in a bulletin dated November 10 — a day after the House Ethics Committee recommended Ms. Moitra’s expulsion — requested MPs to maintain confidentiality regarding the government’s replies to Parliamentary questions until they are presented during Question Hour.
“It may be noted that since the replies are log-in and password protected on the Members’ Portal, they are exclusively for the use of Members only,” the bulletin said.
It informed MPs that the contents of a reply made in response to a question are “strictly confidential” until the question for oral answer has been asked and answered in the House. In case a question could not come up for oral answer, the reply to the question should not be released till the conclusion of Question Hour, the Lok Sabha secretariat added.
“Questions included in the lists of written answers are also to be treated as confidential until the same have been laid on the Table of the House after the Question Hour is over,” it said.
TMC backs Moitra
The Lok Sabha is likely to take a decision on the Ethics Committee’s recommendation for Ms. Moitra’s expulsion during the upcoming session, with the TMC now rallying around her after its initial “wait and watch” approach. TMC president and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee broke her silence on the issue on Thursday, saying that plans were in the works to expel Ms. Moitra from Parliament, but any such action would actually help the lawmaker from Krishnanagar ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
“Now, they are planning to expel Mahua [from Parliament]. She will become more popular as a result. Whatever she used to say inside [Parliament], she will now say those things outside. Would anyone do something like this three months before the elections if he is not stupid?” Ms. Banerjee said, addressing a special session of the party in Kolkata.
