Arjun flew out Warren, says Pranab

The Union finance minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, acknowledged on Sunday that the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh headed by Mr Arjun Singh had taken the decision in December 1984 to send Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson out of Bhopal in view of the deteriorating law and order situation there following the gas disaster.

Mr Mukherjee, conceding that the Congress was in power both in New Delhi and Bhopal at the time, said: “The then Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh made a statement published in an English daily, in which Mr Singh had said the law and order situation would have deteriorated in Bhopal... People’s frenzy was high, tempers were running high; the government had no other option than to let Anderson go out of Bhopal.”