BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav attacked the Congress on Saturday amid Rahul Gandhi's visit to Indore in connection with the water contamination deaths there, claiming the party allowed Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide Corporation at the centre of the horrific 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy, to escape at the time.
Anderson had come to Bhopal after the leak, considered the world's worst industrial disaster, but left for the US soon after and never stood trial.
He died at the age of 92.
"The Congress not only left people here to die, but committed an even greater sin by helping Anderson, the owner of Union Carbide, escape. Leaders of the Congress played a major role in facilitating his escape. Rahul Gandhi should apologise for that phase of governance when his own grandmother and father were in power and responsible," Yadav told reporters.
"This has become a lasting stain. Even during the Manmohan Singh government, nothing was done here," Yadav claimed.
He said the present BJP government was working to revive closed industries across sectors to generate employment and was also moving ahead with reconstruction efforts.
"Madhya Pradesh is strengthening itself to face all kinds of challenges. We are continuously taking up new initiatives and moving ahead," the chief minister said.
Rahul Gandhi on Saturday met patients and families affected by the vomiting and diarrhoea outbreak linked to water contamination in Indore, emphasising that "clean water is a public right."
Gandhi blamed the government's negligence for the fatalities linked to contaminated drinking water in the country's cleanest city, Indore, raising questions over the so-called urban model.