India: Bhopal gas victims to boycott major parties in election

Bhopal: Disillusioned with political parties for allegedly failing to address their concerns, survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy have decided not to vote for any party in the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections to be held on November 25.

Five organisations working among the gas-affected people have launched a campaign to educate the survivors of the biggest industrial disaster about the None Of The Above option (NOTA) option of rejecting all the candidates in the election fray.

‘Nota’ has been introduced in the elections for the first time in India, which allows an individual to indicate disapproval of all of the candidates in poll fray.

Gas-affected people have been demanding interim compensation for all 526,000 survivors who they say were wrongfully denied compensation as per the decision of the Indian Group of Ministers in June, 2010.

In December, 2011 Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had promised to classify the injuries caused by the disaster as permanent instead of categorising 93 per cent of the victims as only temporarily injured in the current version of the curative petition pending in the Supreme Court which would enable majority of victims to receive adequate compensation from the American corporations.

Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karamchari Sangh president Rashida Bee said, “Both of the main political parties BJP and Congress have denied the gas victims their legal right to adequate compensation and both have provided support to the offending multinationals – Union Carbide and Dow Chemical.”

Bhopal Group for Information and Action office-bearer Rachna Dhingra said that in the light of documentary evidence of harm caused to the interests of the gas-affected people by both the political parties, the Nota option was best suited for the survivors of the tragedy.

Balkrishna Namdeo, president of Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha, said, “The BJP and the Congress have mainly been in power at the state and at the centre during the last nearly three decades. The forthcoming elections are an opportunity for the over 800,000 voters from gas-affected families to oppose the betrayal by both these parties.”

In March this year, in an attempt to awaken political parties before the assembly elections, the five organisations wrote letters to a dozen political parties seeking their support to their demands on additional compensation, correction of figures of injury and death, clean-up of contaminated soil and groundwater, compensation for injuries and birth defects caused by toxic contamination and setting up of an empowered commission for rehabilitation of survivors.

The organisations also sought the support of political parties in stopping Dow Chemical, from doing business in India till it presents the absconding chief of the corporation in the on-going criminal case.

According to the functionaries of gas organisations, except the Aam Aadmi Party (established by anti-graft crusader Arvind Kejriwal), none has bothered to respond to the demands of gas survivors.