Mahua effect: MPs’ passwords now personal, PAs lose access

 The Winter Session of Parliament is facing disruptions due to the "Mahua Moitra effect," which refers to Lok Sabha members sharing their passwords and OTPs for official portals and apps. After the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee faulted Mahua Moitra for sharing her password with an outsider, access to secretaries and personal assistants of MPs has been blocked. This has slowed down the functioning of MPs, as they now have to handle their own digital parliamentary tasks. MPs are unofficially reverting back to the old system of sharing passwords and OTPs with their assistants or secretaries.

TOI, 22 NOVEMBER 2023, NEW DELHI: Come the winter session of Parliament, Lok Sabha members are set to face what can be termed the ‘Mahua Moitra effect’ with regard to sharing passwords and OTPs for the House portal or its app , filing notices for questions in the House, submitting travel bills or even accessing their official email.

After the Lok Sabha Ethics Committee faulted TMC’s Mahua Moitra for sharing the password of her official email with an outsider — Dubai-based businessman Darshan Hiranandani — to allegedly upload questions against the Adani Group that  she raised in the House, the LS secretariat is learnt to have blocked access of MPs’ secretaries and personal assistants to the Digital Sansad portal and apps to facilitate the members’ routine functions like submission of questions  to be asked in the House, accessing emails and submitting TA bills.

The access is now restricted to the MP. However, the secretariat has not yet issued any notification on the restriction on access

LS members are now expected to handle their own digital parliamentary functions. But that could be a tall order, given the time and skill constraints of many members. “At best, the members can sit beside their assistants or secretaries, sharing the passwords and OTPs to get their work done. Most MPs are still using this ‘unofficial’ method to participate,” said a source.

With Digital Sansad coming into use since September 1, members were allowed to authorise assistants or secretaries to access their accounts by submitting the email IDs and phone numbers of their authorised personnel to the Lok Sabha secretariat.