NEW DELHI: A controversy erupted on Wednesday after Congress MP KC Venugopal accused govt of removing a Lok Sabha question on the auction of 13 offshore mining blocks around Arabian and Andaman seas at the last minute, alleging it wanted to evade answering whether the socio-economic impact assessment (SIA) was done prior to the auction, which would have exposed its “dubious mining policy”.Terming it “procedural manipulation” by the Centre, he said the question, listed by BJP MPs Balabhadra Majhi and Aparajita Sarangi, was the first starred one for question hour on Wednesday. It asked govt to name shortlisted candidates for 13 mining blocks, the number of fishing villages within 20 nautical miles and whether SIA was done for each.The MP said govt had uploaded the question in the public domain but it “miraculously vanished” ahead of proceedings. He said, “What forced this abrupt deletion? Who is govt trying to protect? Was it because govt’s dubious offshore mining policy was about to be exposed…?” tnn