Former and current Indian athletes have asked the Indian Olympic Association to take the action on December 5, because they object to Dow Chemicals £7m sponsorship of the wrap around the Olympic Stadium. The wrap - which will hide suppprting beams around the exterior of the stadium - needed a sponsor to cover its costs.

Dow Chemical owns Union Carbide, the company responsible for the Bhopal gas leak in 1984, one of the world's biggest ever environmental disasters. The Indian government is still pursuing Dow for £1.1bn of compensation for the victims of the disasters. Union Carbide paid £300m pounds in compensation following the disaster and Dow claims that the matter is now settled.

They claim they never owned or operated the facility in Bhopal and only acquired shares of Union Carbide more than 16 years after the tragedy. Barry Gardiner, MP said: "Locog cannot continue to ignore the risk that Dow poses to the Games. I urge Lord Coe to think of the athletes.

"They need to focus on preparing to give the performance of their lives. "It is not fair to distract them or have them embroiled in a political dispute. Locog made a mistake in partnering with Dow. "They must now accept that, end the relationship and lift this cloud from London 2012. They now have a deadline of ten days to do so."

Mr Gardiner has brought together Bhopal victims groups, 25 cross-party MPs and 22 Olympians to sign his letter to Locog. The vote follows a letter from a senior Indian politician urging the country's government to boycott the Games over the issue. "The funds intended for sponsoring the Olympics would be far better spent in alleviating the misery suffered by the people of Bhopal," chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, the capital of which is Bhopal, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, said.