New Delhi:
On a day that the Congress found itself ducking blow after blow on the handling of the Bhopal gas tragedy 25 years ago, the BJP launched a full-fledged attack asking the party to apologise to the country for "allowing Warren Anderson to get away."
The BJP had some uncomfortable questions it wanted answered as this week's Bhopal verdict reopened old wounds and got former officials to dust out memories and speak up.
"Who accompanied Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson out of Bhopal? Who organized the plane for his getaway?" BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar asked, demanding an independent inquiry into the "role that the Congress government played in allowing Anderson to leave the country", which, he said, weakened the case against Union Carbide considerably.
Warren Anderson was the CEO of the US-based Union Carbide Corporation which owned the plant that leaked methyl isocynate gas a little after midnight on December 3, 1984, silently killing and maiming thousands in Bhopal.
The BJP alleged that the Congress has for long pandered to American companies and posed questions on why the then government agreed to a compensation settlement of only 470 million dollars for Bhopal's victims. And why Union Carbide, in its new avatar Dow Chemicals has been allowed into the country and what due diligence has been done.