DMK MP’s admiration for Prabhakaran irks Karti Chidambaram, says eulogising LTTE leader doesn’t sit well with Congress

When questioned what she would ask that person, she said, “I would apologise. I would ask his pardon for that Mullivaikal tragedy (mass killing of tens of thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils in 2009 during the closing stages of the Sri Lankan civil war).”

A snippet of the interview with the DMK Lok Sabha MP from Chennai South was shared on X on Sunday, the birth anniversary of Prabhakaran, by climate activist G Sundarrajan of Poovulagin Nanbargal.

In reaction to this post, Chidambaram slammed Tamizhachi, eulogising Prabhakaran does not sit well with the Congress, an ally of the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu.

“To gloss over the dastardly assassination of Rajiv Gandhi along with 17 Tamils is not acceptable,” Chidambaram said.

Former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was killed by the LTTE in 1991 in retaliation to India sending a peacekeeping force to fight the Tamil militant group in Sri Lanka.

“This Prabakaran Veerappan Tamil Nationalism is as fringe as Hindutva Nationalism,” Chidambaram added, also referring to the bandit Veerappan, who was active for decades in forests of southern India.

“One can sympathise & support the Palestinian people without being an endorser of Hamas, likewise one can stand with the Tamils of Srilanka in their struggle for equality & dignity without being an apologist & fanboy of the LTTE. Why is this difficult to comprehend?” the Congress Lok Sabha MP from Sivaganga asked.

He also shared links to articles and interviews he gave earlier that explained his stand of opposing the hero worship of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination case convicts and his view that not just Rajiv Gandhi but others were also killed along with him in the suicide bomb blast at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, another DMK ally Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi’s (VCK) deputy general secretary Vanni Arasu criticised Chidambaram, asking how long he would degrade Tamils by bringing up the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Vanni said Tamils continue to live in unspeakable horror in Tamil Eelam (a proposed independent state the Tamil diaspora aspires to create in the north and east of Sri Lanka) and it is time for the Congress to change its stand.

He claimed that Rajiv Gandhi’s mother and his predecessor as the prime minister, Indira Gandhi, had extended support to the LTTE and Prabhakaran in line with the “ideology of protecting the minorities”.

“Nobody is celebrating Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. He chose his end. To support Methagu Prabhakaran is to oppose Hindutva,” he wrote as part of his post on X.

In May 2022, the Supreme Court ordered the release of A J Perarivalan, one of the convicts in the assassination case. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin called the court’s decision historic. While the Dravidian parties DMK, AIADMK, and others, including the VCK, Makkal Needhi Maiam and even the BJP, welcomed the decision, the Congress expressed its disappointment. It said the accused in the assassination case were murderers and they were not innocent.

Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K S Alagiri said in a statement that some people were empathising with the convicts of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case just because they were Tamils. Covering their mouths with white clothes, Congress workers staged state-wide protests against the release of Perarivalan.

Chief Minister Stalin’s decision to facilitate Perarivalan a week after his release drew criticism from several quarters. Shiv Sena said such acts do not fit India’s political culture and set a wrong precedent.