Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Monday asked the Union government to clarify whether it plans to recognise cryptocurrencies. He also expressed concern about the recent hacking of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Twitter account.

Chowdhury, who is the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, made the statement during Zero Hour in the Lower House.

“If the prime minister’s Twitter handle is not safe, how can ordinary people in India keep their Twitter handles safe?” Chowdhury asked. He noted that a time when the government was seeking to ban cryptocurrencies, the prime minister’s Twitter account put out a post giving recognition (to cryptocurrencies).

Chowdhury said that the Centre should explain in Parliament how Modi’s Twitter handle was compromised twice in the past two years. He appeared to have been referring to the hacking of the Twitter account linked to Modi’s personal website in September 2020.

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The account had at the time put out posts asking for donations to the PM-CARES fund through cryptocurrency.

On Sunday, the prime minister’s office said that Modi’s Twitter account was briefly compromised after the account put out a post promising to give away Bitcoins. The PMO added that the matter was escalated to Twitter and the account was immediately secured.

“India has officially adopted Bitcoin as legal tender,” the tweet, which has now been deleted, said. “The government has officially bought 500 BTC [bitcoins] and is distributing them to all residents of the country.”

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Bitcoin is a form a cyrptocurrency, a currency that exists digitally or virtually, which is protected by cryptography.

Currently, there are no regulations on the use of cryptocurrencies in India. The Centre is planning introduce a Bill during the Winter Session to ban private cryptocurrencies in India and introduce an official digital currency issued by the Reserve Bank of India.