Don't succumb to pressures by multinationals: CPI(M) to govt

 CPI(M) today asked the government not to succumb to "extra-constitutional pressures mounted by multinational companies" in the matter of compensation for the victims of Bhopal gas disaster.

Party leader in Rajya Sabha Sitaram Yechury told reporters that instead the government should put the onus of Bhopal gas disaster on the US firm Dow Chemicals and ask it to clean up the toxic waste from the accident site.

"Dow should be held responsible to clean up the toxic waste, besides compensating the victims. If nothing, the government should emulate the US where it has sought USD 20 billion fund from British Petroleum for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill".

A senior US Administration official had written to Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia not to persist on Dow Chemical compensation issue so as to avoid any "chilling" in the investment relationship between the two countries.

The Congress said the party or the government would not respond to the reported letter by a US official on Dow Chemicals.

"Whether its a breach of propriety on behalf of the US Administration to be writing something which essentially falls within the domain of corporate interest of a particular company, I don't think Government of India or Congress party (should) be answering that," Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari told reporters outside Parliament.

"But having said that Montek Singh Ahluwalia has already spoken on the matter," he said, adding that government was pursuing all remedies, including reopening of the judicial decisions of 1989 and 1996 in this regard to maintain the interests of the gas victims.