Dissident BJP MP Susheel Chandra Verma's crusade to get all of Bhopal declared as ``gas affected'' may seem like a humanitarian one at first glance. But further scrutiny would reveal it for what it is -- a clever political gambit by a MP who got elected from Bhopal and would like to be seen as the city's saviour.

Fortunately, both the attorney-general and the additional solicitor-general saw no legal merit in Verma's argument and dissuaded the BJP-led government from kowtowing to the MP's demand. Verma argues that the disbursement of Rs 1,000 crore -- part of the total sum of $470 million that the UnionCarbide paid as compensation -- must be divided among all 56 municipal wards of the city, and not just the 36 wards identified as ``gas affected''. Both legal experts within government and activists who have been fighting for compensation all these years opine that this would make a mockery of the whole compensation process.

Even if it can be argued that residents in the city as a whole suffered during the night of the gas leak, to equate the suffering of those situated in the region immediately surrounding the plant with that of others living far away, would amount to a miscarriage of justice.

The $470 million should, therefore, go only to those who have been designated as the victims of the tragedy, or the families of those killed. Bringing more beneficiaries into the compensation regime at this late stage would amount to depriving the real victims of their share of what was, in any case, considered as a woefully inadequate settlement reached after years of battling it out in the courts and on thestreets.

There could well be a case for the others in the city also getting compensated for the trauma they suffered during the disaster, but this must necessarily be viewed as a distinctly separate claim. In any case, there were no attempts by them to take their case to court or even challenge the Supreme Court order of 1989 that set down the amount and identified the beneficiaries of the compensation package.

The Bhopal gas tragedy seems to have come as a windfall for too many. The lawyers who descended on the city in the wake of the tragedy were deservedly termed as ``ambulance chasers''. Politicians were no better. Many, like Verma, consciously build their careers on it.

If he is indeed as concerned about helping the city cope with its traumatic history of disaster, he should work to get the various hospitals set up for the gas victims and their families into some kind of working order. A much-hyped multi-bed hospital inaugurated as late as last year is still not functioning properly, with only itsOPD wing seeing any activity. Similarly, another set up to handle pulmonary diseases is found to be strangely bereft of the most basic facilities. If Verma was to spend his energy in solving such problems, he would have more than earned the gratitude of the city he represents.