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The greatness of Congress party - Like Anderson, like plane
Not just Warren Anderson, the aircraft that helped him make his escape from Indian soil and all the records linked to it are also in the US.
The B-200 Super King plane that took Anderson, the chief of Union Carbide at the time of the Bhopal gas tragedy, from the Madhya Pradesh capital to Delhi is now in the US.
The logbook of the aircraft — bearing the registration VT-EID — that would have had details of passenger(s) who had taken off on December 7, 1984, at 4pm from Bhopal was handed over to Span Air, Delhi.
In late 1998, the then Congress regime in Madhya Pradesh under Digvijay Singh sold the plane to Span Air for an undisclosed sum and handed over its logbook(s).
The Telegraph has learnt that the plane was resold in Anderson’s country about a couple of years ago, once again along with the logbook(s) that listed the records of all passengers who travelled on the aircraft between 1982 and 1998 when it served as a state carrier.
After reaching Delhi by the Super King, Anderson boarded a commercial flight to New York, never to return. He was declared an “absconder� by Indian courts trying the gas tragedy cases and is said to be leading a life of luxury in the US.
Sources said when Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan ordered an internal probe to check details of Anderson’s final journey from Bhopal, he was dismayed to know that the crucial details were far away from India.
Chauhan was reportedly curious to know the identity of the authority that had given written orders which allowed Anderson to escape the law. Although the pilots have not admitted it, there was another “unauthorised� passenger accompanying the then Union Carbide chief executive.
Ved Prakash Grover, a Bhopal-based businessman, claimed he was
Anderson’s co-passenger on the B-200 aircraft. Grover’s own admission is that he knew some influential person was to get a “lift� on the government plane.
He now claims that during the journey, Anderson praised the Madhya Pradesh government of the day. “Anderson was given VVIP treatment in Bhopal. I thought he was some kind of an ambassador or some big shot. The officials at the airport saluted him. When I spoke to him, he praised the Arjun Singh government and said, ‘Good governance’. Anderson looked very much relaxed and slept for most part of the (90-minute) journey,� Grover said.
Grover, however, would not say how he managed to board the plane without authorisation. But in Bhopal, retired bureaucrats said they were least surprised by the businessman’s disclosure.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, senior government functionaries said that going by the political stature of Arjun and his brazen style of functioning, the then Madhya Pradesh chief minister may not have deemed it necessary to even seek “political clearance� for giving “safe passage� to Anderson.
Senior bureaucrats recall that Arjun’s favourite noting on government files used to be “niyamon ko shithil karte hue karvahi karen (relax rules to get things done)�.
A retired chief secretary said as much. “The state aircraft was often treated as a personal property by some political masters. Often it was used to fetch a sari for the chief minister’s wife or a birthday cake from Delhi. Most often the passengers included political leaders, businessmen, relatives of politicians, godmen, astrologers and scribes,� he said.
In Madhya Pradesh, government-owned planes were called “uran khatolas (flying cots)�. There were rules and regulations governing flights. But in practice, many state regimes flouted the norms.
During elections, state aircraft were often used to ferry huge sums of money. Once, after a high constitutional authority of a state met with an accident in the hilly terrain of a neighbouring state, villagers saw currency notes raining down
Posted by: Saroj Date: 2010-08-10
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