TMC wants Mahua Moitra out of Nishikant Dubey-led IT panel
Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan has already shifted from the IT panel to labour committee and TMC’s Saket Gokhale has joined the IT committee.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s office to shift party lawmaker Mahua Moitra from the standing committee on Communications and Information Technology, which is chaired by BJP’s Nishikant Dubey, to another House panel, a move likely prompted by the bad blood between the two.

Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan, a Rajya Sabha MP has already shifted from the IT panel to labour committee and Trinamool’s Saket Gokhale has joined the IT committee, as a part of the Opposition’s strategy.
Dubey and Moitra are considered rivals. In 2023, Dubey moved a cash-for-query complaint against Moitra that resulted into her expulsion from the previous Lok Sabha on December 8, 2023. Moitra, a popular and articulate lawmaker and a staunch critic of the BJP had also lodged notices against Dubey.
Trinamool’s Lok Sabha floor leader Sudip Bandopadhyay admitted that his party has made a request to the Speaker: “I have requested the Lok Sabha Speaker to shift Mahua Moitra to the committee of external affairs as there is a vacancy in that committee. I wrote to the Speaker last week.”
The high-profile committee, which made news repeatedly for acrimonious exchanges between the BJP and Opposition members during the last Lok Sabha, oversees the government’s digital expansion and technology-related plans. In the 17th Lok Sabha, it also reviewed the digital data protection bill. But the fault lines between the Opposition and the BJP members were so deep that midway into the term of the last Lok Sabha, panel chairman Shashi Tharoor was moved to the chemicals and fertilizers panel.
A BJP leader, requesting anonymity claimed the decision to move Moitra out is “ Dubey’s victory” because the “TMC is compelled to change its member in the panel.”
While the Speaker is yet to take any decision on the matter, a Rajya Sabha notification said that Samajwadi Party leader Jaya Bachchan has been shifted to the labour committee and Saket Gokhale has joined the IT panel from the labour committee. While parties and MPs can seek changes, the ultimate decision is the Rajya Sabha Chairman’s in the case of members of the upper house (such as Bachchan and Gokhale) and the Lok Sabha Speaker in the case of Lok Sabha members.
A TMC Rajya Sabha member claimed the moves are part of a larger strategy.
“Saket is one of the most capable guys on communications and technology,” this person added, while admitting that Dubey’s naming as chairman prompted the change. “After we saw Nishikant Dubey has been made as the Chairman, we had to make these changes.”
Both Moitra and Dubey declined to comment.
Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar also nominated JDU’s Sanjay Kumar Jha and BJP’s Dhairyashil Mohan Patil as members of the standing committee on water resources.
A senior Lok Sabha official maintained that such changes are unusual as membership in house panels is given on the basis of recommendation of the respective committees. “Before the panels are formed, all parties are asked to recommend the names of their members for different standing committees. Only after the parties send their recommendations, the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha chairman constitute the panels.”
According to some people familiar with the matter, the changes may have also been necessitated by the resignation of Jawahar Sircar of the TMC resigned as Rajya Sabha member. He was part of the commerce panel.
