• Sponsorship continues despite resignation over Bhopal
• Ken Livingstone and Tessa Jowell call for action
London 2012 organisers have insisted they will not reconsider their position on Dow Chemical's sponsorship of the wrap that surrounds the Olympic Stadium, despite renewed calls to drop it following the resignation of one of the commissioners at the 2012 sustainability watchdog over the issue.
Meredith Alexander, one of the 12 commissioners of the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 watchdog and head of trade and corporates at the charity Action Aid, tendered her resignation from the unpaid post on Wednesday.
Campaigners believe that Dow has ongoing liabilities relating to the 1984 Bhopal disaster, which is thought to have caused the deaths of more than 15,000 people and injured tens of thousands more, relating to its 2001 purchase of the plant-owners, Union Carbide.
"It is appalling that 27 years on, the site has still not been cleaned up and thousands upon thousands of people are still suffering," Alexander said. "I believe people should be free to enjoy London 2012 without this toxic legacy on their conscience."
Campaigners against the £7m sponsorship deal claimed that Alexander's resignation raised fresh questions over the procurement process, with the London mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone and the London 2012 board member Tessa Jowell among those calling for action. But the London 2012 chief executive, Paul Deighton, again insisted on Thursday that it would not reconsider the decision to award the contract to Dow, which also has a £100m deal with the International Olympic Committee.
Deighton said: "It is absolutely her right to make her point about how she feels about the victims of Bhopal. We fully respect her. She is one of 12 people who signed off on our process for choosing Dow to provide the wrap – so we carry on.
"It is absolutely her right to resign. She is one of 12 members of that sustainability commission who signed off on the way we approached awarding the wrap to Dow. I think that it is great that we have got this independent function to oversee so all this is washed through transparently. I think that is fine but we are moving on."
The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games has consistently defended the process by which Dow was awarded the sponsorship contract. But Jowell said that Alexander's resignation raised fresh questions about the commission's decision to give Locog's procurement process the green light.
The commission, chaired by Shaun McCarthy, has said its remit relates only to the procurement process and not to wider human rights issues or the appointment of sponsors. Jowell said: "I have called today for an audit of the steps taken that led the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012 to recommend to Locog that Dow Chemical's sponsorship of the wrap was consistent with the high sustainability aims that we set for 2012. We also need to understand what the role of other commissioners was in the process which reached that conclusion.
"We need a solution not a row. Dow Chemical need to understand the seriousness with which people take the continuing situation in Bhopal following the tragic disaster in 1984. I will do everything I can to make sure this issue does not overshadow the Games. There is still time for a solution to be found."
Livingstone called on Locog to end its association with Dow immediately, warning that it risked casting a shadow over the Games. He said: "This is not a historic disaster, it is ongoing, and attempts to clean up the area have been woefully inadequate. I want to see Dow publicly admit responsibility for the Bhopal tragedy, to clean up the contaminated site, and to compensate victims.
"I think the responsible thing to do would be for Dow to withdraw from the wrap contract. Otherwise London 2012 is undermining its aim to be the most sustainable Games ever and showing contempt for the Bhopal victims."
Dow maintains that it reached a full and final settlement with the Indian government over the disaster and has no ongoing liabilities.
Barry Gardiner, the MP who is chair of the Labour Friends of India Group, renewed his calls for a parliamentary select committee inquiry. He said: "It is clear that Locog had lined Dow Chemical up for this partnership deal, and the whole procurement process was a sham."