Amid the ongoing “cash for query” investigation against TMC MP Mahua Moitra, sources in the Government said her Parliament login ID was not just accessed from Dubai, but also from New Jersey, the United States, and Bengaluru.

Sources from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said her login credentials were used from New Jersey and Bengaluru when the TMC MP was in Kolkata and then in Delhi on the same day.

Moitra admitted to sharing her Parliament login ID and password with businessman Darshan Hiranandani so that someone in the latter’s office could type in the questions to be asked in the Lok Sabha.

The Lok Sabha Ethics Committee, headed by BJP MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar, has already submitted its report on the allegation against Moitra to the Speaker’s office. The report, adopted by a majority in the Committee, recommended Moitra’s expulsion from the House, accusing her of accepting “illegal gratifications” to raise questions in Parliament at the behest of the businessman.

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey had forwarded a complaint against the TMC member by lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, accusing her of taking bribes for asking questions in the House at the behest of Hiranandani to target the Adani Group and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The TMC MP, however, has refuted the allegations against her, calling them “defamatory, false, baseless, and not supported by even a shred of evidence”. “Someone in Hiranandani’s office typed the question, which I gave on Parliament website. After putting the question, they would call me to inform, and I would read all the questions in one go as I am always busy in my constituency,” Moitra said.

“After putting the question, an OTP (one-time password) comes on my mobile phone. I would give that OTP and only then is the question submitted. So, the idea that Hiranandani would log in to my ID and put in questions of his own is ludicrous,” the TMC MP had said.

The Lok Sabha Secretariat has already made changes on the confidentiality of Government’s replies to MPs during the Question Hour in the House and asked them to access their portal only for their exclusive use.

Under this new initiative, the secretariat said replies to ‘Starred Questions’, a term for queries where Ministers concerned answer to related supplementaries in the House, are being uploaded on members’ portal by 9 am on the day of reply.

With Parliament’s Winter Session scheduled to begin from December 4, members have begun putting in their questions. The House is likely to take a decision on the Ethics Committee’s recommendation for Moitra’s expulsion during the session, with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) rallying around her after its initial “wait and watch” approach.

“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 Lok Sabha secretariat said in its bulletin dated November 10, a day after the the House’s Ethics Committee recommended Moitra’s expulsion.

Members are, therefore, requested to maintain confidentiality of the replies and not to share the contents with others until the Question Hour is over, it added. It informed MPs that the contents of reply made in response to a question is “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.

Sources said the Lok Sabha has merely reiterated the same set of existing rules about confidentiality in the wake of the episode involving Moitra. She was accused by Dubey of letting the businessman to access her parliamentary portal in lieu of bribes, and the Lok Sabha’s Ethics Committee has recommended her expulsion.

Moitra was last week tasked with strengthening the party’s organisation in Nadia district, in a clear message of support from the TMC. TMC president Mamata Banerjee on Thursday broke her silence over the issue and said plans were in the works to expel her (Moitra) from Parliament but any such action would help the lawmaker from Krishnanagar ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.