Post date: Jan 27, 2012 5:55:10 PM
The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) renews its demand that London 2012 terminates its sponsorship deal with Dow Chemicals, feeling vindicated by the resignation of a Games watchdog panel member over the tie-up.
NEW DELHI, INDIA (JANUARY 27, 2012) ((ANI) -The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) on Friday (January 27) renewed its demand that London 2012 terminates its sponsorship deal with Dow Chemicals, feeling vindicated by the resignation of a Games watchdog panel member over the tie-up.
Meredith Alexander quit the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 on Wednesday (January 25), saying she did not want to be part of a body that "became an apologist" for Dow Chemicals, the U.S. firm linked to India's 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
Dow bought the Bhopal plant owner Union Carbide in 1999.
Her resignation prompted IOA chief Vijay Kumar Malhotra to send a second letter to International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge exactly six months before the Games, saying there was no need to carry "this toxic legacy."
Speaking to mediapersons in New Delhi, IOA acting president, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, said that, following the resignation of Alexander, the IOC should maintain its ethical integrity and remove DOW chemicals as sponsors for the quadrennial event.
"The IOC entrusts a lot of faith in ethics all across the world that is why we have again written them to remove them (DOW chemicals) as sponsors or ask them to withdraw their sponsorship. If they do not withdraw, the IOC should remove them.
Q: An official of the Olympic committee has made it clear that such threats don't affect us and we will not remove the sponsorship. What's your reaction?
We are still awaiting a reply in writing from the Olympic committee. Once we get a reply we will discuss the matter with the federal government, and after the discussions with the government we will decide our mode of protest," said Malhotra.
Alexander said a number of other panel members were also "deeply disturbed" by the company's sponsorship of a temporary decorative wrap around London's Olympic Stadium.
India's sports minister Ajay Maken also stated that the federal government had asked the IOA to file a complaint with the IOC and the Indian embassy in London had also raised an objection on DOW being a sponsor.
Maken was interacting with mediapersons in India's holy city of Varanasi.
"We have written to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to raise a protest in front of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The Indian High Commission in London has also raised its protest. Hence, from the medium of our high commission and from the medium of the IOA we have protested against this decision," Maken added.
Activists say 25,000 people died in the years that followed the gas leak at a pesticides factory in the central Indian city of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh.
Campaigners have demanded Dow boosts a 1989 compensation package for those affected by the disaster.
Dow, also an IOC worldwide partner, has denied any responsibility for the accident and says Union Carbide had settled its liabilities with the Indian government.
A number of former Olympians have slammed the London sponsorship deal while Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has urged the government to boycott the Games over the issue.
However, Malhotra has ruled out the possibility.