Advani draws parallels with Emergency

Raising the debate to a new level on former Union Carbide chief Warren Andersons exit from the country after the Bhopal gas tragedy

Raising the debate to a new level on former Union Carbide chief Warren Andersons exit from the country after the Bhopal gas tragedy,senior BJP leader L K Advani on Monday equated the Rajiv Gandhi governments handling of the events in 1984 with the high-handed manner in which Indira Gandhi had imposed Emergency in 1975.

In his first comments on the controversy surrounding the safe passage given to Anderson,Advani bracketed together the imposition of the Emergency,the anti-Sikh riots and the handling of the Bhopal gas tragedy. Democracy was jeopardised in 1975. The role of the government in the anti-Sikh riots and the Bhopal gas leak in 1984 was also not above board, he told The Indian Express.

In linking the Emergency with the handling of the Bhopal disaster and the anti-Sikh riots,Advani has consciously chosen to highlight the authoritarian ways of the earlier Congress governments. On Sunday,Advani had posted an entry in his blog,recalling the happenings of the Emergency imposed on June 26,1975.

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The country needs to be intensely alive to this phase of independent Indias history. Allowing this phase to be forgotten would be tantamount to doing a grave disservice to democracy, he had said.

On Monday,the BJP dubbed the recommendations of the Group of Ministers disappointing. The government woke up late and decided to give more compensation. It is welcome,but the GoM was silent on who allowed Anderson to escape, said party spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain. We would like to know what the deal was (with the US) in helping Anderson flee.

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