Andhra Pradesh Opposition leader and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday asserted that LG Polymers factory at RR Venkatapuram in Visakhapatnam "should not be allowed to reopen at its present location under any circumstances" considering the heavy loss of human lives and livestock in the gas leakage tragedy.
He strongly objected to the "light-hearted manner" in which Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy had said that the government would await the report and then see whether the factory should be shifted or not.
Addressing a virtual press conference here, Naidu demanded that the factory be relocated to some other non-populated place so that there would be no harm to residents anywhere.
"The Chief Minister's references to LG Polymers as a multi-national company in the present context were totally unwarranted and his meeting with the accused company executives objectionable. The immediate focus should be on fixing whether it was a human error or technical snag," Naidu said.
The TDP chief asked how the polymer factory was allowed to reopen during the nationwide lockdown period though it was not dealing with any sort of essential services.
"It should be studied why the factory management failed to take necessary precautionary measures to prevent a technical error if it was found so. Another unexplainable lapse was why the factory alarm system failed at such a crucial time and for the first few hours when most harm was done to residents," the former chief minister said.
Naidu also accused the government of taking a lighter view of the human tragedy, saying that small cases were filed against the factory management under bailable sections like 278, 284 and 285 of IPC. "If this was a small crime, why has National Green Tribunal ordered LG Polymers to deposit Rs 50 crore immediately? This Government has no seriousness or awareness and the Chief Minister will not listen to anybody. The gas tragedy is being dealt with in a superficial manner," he added.
Stating that despite his long years of experience in the past as a chief minister, Naidu said that he had never come across one single incident of Styrene-related tragedy which was why he had talked to four to five scientists as part of Global Forum for Sustainable Transformation (GFST) but still had no conclusive information on clear recovery measures.
He deplored that while the TDP was creating the right kind of awareness, the YSRCP leaders were indulging in cheap allegations obviously to cover up their inefficiencies and failure to rescue people from immediate tragedies like gas leakage and coronavirus.
( With inputs from ANI )