By IANS,
New Delhi : Breaking his silence, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh has said he has “no locus standi” on the issue of then Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson being allowed to leave India after the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
“I have no locus standi on the issue,” Arjun Singh, a senior Congress leader, told the Hindustan Times, virtually indicating it was the then central government’s decision to provide safe passage to Anderson.
Arjun Singh, who is a member of the Congress Working Committee, also indicated that his autobiography would have details of the Bhopal tragedy and the Anderson saga.
Arjun Singh was the Madhya Pradesh chief minister and Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister when thousands were killed following the leak of poisonous gas from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal.
Senior Congress leaders, including Digvijay Singh, Satyavrat Chaturvedi and R.K. Dhawan have said that Arjun Singh was the person who could answer questions relating to Anderson’s release.
Asked about Arjun Singh’s remarks, however, Congress spokesman Mohan Prakash did not offer any comments. He said the Group of Ministers (GoM) looking into the Bhopal gas leak tragedy will find a solution to all issues being raised.
“Whatever questions have been raised, curiosities that have been arisen, the GoM will find a solution to them,” Prakash told IANS
The Congress had Friday rejected former foreign secretary M. K. Rasgotra’s remarks during a television interview that Rajiv Gandhi did not object to the home ministry’s decision to provide safe passage to Anderson on the request of the US embassy in Delhi.
“There is absolutely no evidence of any kind whatsoever, direct or indirect, to support this completely outrageous and ridiculous allegation,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in Washington.
Anderson, who was briefly arrested in Bhopal Dec 7, 1984 when he came in the aftermath of the tragedy and then quickly released on bail, was later declared a proclaimed offender by an Indian court. He lives in the US.