'Miraculously vanished': Congress slams last-minute withdrawal of offshore mining questions in Lok Sabha

New Delhi: A question on auction of offshore mining blocks across Arabian and Andaman Sea by two BJP MPs listed in Lok Sabha on Wednesday was withdrawn by the lawmakers, prompting senior Congress MP K C Venugopal to ask the government why it was done and who it is trying to protect.

The question by Balabhadra Majhi and Aparajita Sarangi was listed as the first to be answered orally in Lok Sabha on Wednesday but a subsequent "corrigendum" added to the Question List on Monday said the "question (was) withdrawn by both the members".

The two MPs from Odisha has asked the Minister of Mines to provide the total number of bids received for each of the 13 offshore mining blocks auctioned across Arabian and Andaman Sea and the number of bidders shortlisted for the purpose and the total number of fishing communities and villages located within a radius of 20 nautical miles of each auctioned mining block.

They also asked whether a socio-economic impact assessment was carried out in these areas before the auction and the expected employment generation potential from these offshore mining projects.

Majhi and Sarangi could not be reached for their comments and messages were left unanswered at the time of filing of the report.

The Rule 47 of Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha allows an MP to withdraw a question by giving a notice at any time before the sitting for which such member’s question has been placed on the list.

Venugopal posted on 'X' that the question listed in the name of two ruling party MPs has "miraculously vanished" and they were expecting the government to offer some clarity and accountability.

“But shockingly, after uploading the question list in the public domain, the question was mysteriously withdrawn at the last minute without any explanation. Why was this question pulled out? What forced this abrupt deletion? Who is the government trying to protect? Was it because the Government’s dubious offshore mining policy was about to be exposed in broad daylight? This kind of procedural manipulation raises serious questions about transparency and the state of our democracy,” he said.

Venugopal said they have persistently raised this issue -- the environmental dangers, the absence of socio-economic impact assessments, and the opaque auction process.

“I had raised it in the last session through a Calling Attention Motion, and several MPs have raised it on multiple occasions and we have been submitting questions in this session also,” he added.