PM should speak to Obama on Anderson: Arjun Singh

Breaking his silence on the issue of Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson’s exit from the country 25 years ago, senior Congress leader Arjun Singh on Wednesday lobbed the ball in prime minister Manmohan Singh’s court.

“He should take up this issue with US president Barack Obama when he visits the country later this year,” said Singh, who was the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh when the Bhopal gas tragedy took place in 1984.

Singh spoke in a short-duration discussion in the Rajya Sabha on the matter. Keeping up his image as a true Gandhi family loyalist, Singh cleared the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi of any involvement in Anderson’s release. “He (Gandhi) was in Harsud, and I informed him of Anderson’s arrest. He kept quiet,” Singh said, adding that those blaming Gandhi for Anderson’s exit are not aware of the facts.

Singh then hinted at pressure from the Union home ministry, then under the late PV Narasimha Rao, with whom he had a rough political relationship. Singh said his chief secretary kept informing him about calls from ministry officials regarding Anderson’s arrest.

Singh candidly took responsibility for Anderson’s arrest and release, saying he let him off as Bhopal’s mobs could have lynched him. But, he added, he was surprised at Anderson’s arrogance. “He landed in Bhopal after his factory was responsible for the death of thousands of persons and on reaching the airport wanted to know why the chief minister had not come to receive him.”

The Bhopal debate in both Houses of Parliament saw the ruling Congress take the battle into the opposition camp on the political aspects of the case. Union home minister P Chidambaram, who heads a group of ministers on Bhopal, rebuffed leader of the opposition Sushma Swaraj’s attempt to link the CBI’s laxity in Anderson’s escape to the “misuse of the agency” in the Sohrabuddin encounter case, in connection with which former Gujarat home minister Amit Shah is in custody. “The CBI intervention in the Sohrabuddin case has come because of the Supreme Court and not the central government.”

Even on the question of the delay in Anderson’s extradition, Congress MP Manish Tewari pointed out that it was Arun Jaitley, who, when he was law minister, had observed that the case was weak.

Chidambaram asserted that although there might have been several problems with the manner in which the issue has been handled by successive governments, the recently set-up group of ministers has initiated all corrective measures.